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Education for Modernization in China 


A Search for Criteria of Curriculum Construction in View 
of the Transition in National Life, with Special 
Reference to Secondary Education 


By 
PENG CHUN CHANG, Ph.D. 


Teachers College, Columbia University 
Contributions to Education, No. 137 


Published by 
Teachers College, Columbia Antbersitp 
New York City 
1923 


Copyright, 7923, by Penc Coun Cuaneo 


PREFACE 

THIS essay is an attempt—preliminary in intent and character—at 
a critical interpretation of the bewildering process of modernization 
that China is going through, with the purpose in view of discovering 
some form of effective educational content for the transforming pe- 
riod. It takes up the analysis of the nature and direction of the tran- 
sition rather than the exposition of the old and existing culture in 
China. Hence it has drawn freely from the wisdom of modern West- 
ern thinkers especially in regard to the characteristics of the modern 
world. 

The chief interest of this inquiry is to develop a new line of ap- 
proach, a re-oriented point of view. As to the concrete details of 
school procedure which this theory implies, much remains to be 
worked out in the process of actual experimentation. 

I wish to express my indebtedness to Professors Kilpatrick, Dewey, 
Monroe, and Kandel, of Teachers College, Columbia University, who 
have been in charge of this study. It has been chiefly due to the 
clarifying guidance and sympathetic interest of Professor Kilpatrick 
that the initial impulse of a search has been conducted into the chan- 
nels of systematic research. 


Penc CHUN CHANG 


New York City 
May 1, 1922 


544191 


a a ie 


Ne 
at 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER 


I. INTRODUCTION 


II. Tue GovERNMENT MIDDLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND 
ATTEMPTS AT REFORMATION 


III. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TRANSITION AND AIM OF EDU- 
CATION 


IV. Cuter CONDITIONING CIRCUMSTANCE OF MODERN 
PROGRESS . 


V. FRONTIER EXPERIENCE IN MODERN EDUCATIONAL EN- 
DEAVOR , é i ; : é. s : 


VI. Proposep CRITERIA FOR CURRICULUM CONSTRUCTION 
IN THE EDUCATION FOR MODERNIZATION 


VII. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS IN A PROGRAM OF CuUR- 
RICULUM CONSTRUCTION 


VIII. A SuGGEsTtTeD CONTENT FOR THE EARLY STAGE OF 
LEADERSHIP EDUCATION AS A BASIS FOR EXPERI- 
MENTATION : i : ‘ ; ? ; 


APPENDIX 


I. CERTAIN ATTEMPTS THAT ILLUSTRATED IN A MEASURE 
SoME ASPECTS OF THE PLAN HEREIN DISCUSSED 


II. A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE CHIEF CONDITION- 
ING CIRCUMSTANCE OF MODERN PROGRESS . : 


Les, 


17 


26 


33 


56 


69 


81 


87 


CHAPTER I 


INTRODUCTION 


Modern education in China is yet new and without a firm founda- 
tion. There is a national system that has been in force for over fifteen 
years, but on account of the lack of settled order in the political situa- 
tion the new education has had, especially in the last four or five 
years, a rather checkered career. The military governors and the poli- 
ticians who live on them are controlling for the time being the taxes 
and public properties. Why should they direct to the schools the 
money which might more conveniently go to their private purses? 
Are not the schools the places where the trouble-makers—the young 
irresponsible agitators—are produced? From their point of view and 
for their own ends, they are justified in cutting off educational funds. 
No settled order, no funds, no definite body that can enforce a per- 
sistent policy—under such circumstances one may well question the 
future of new education in China. Yet even a casual visitor to China 
to-day can readily discern the enthusiasm and faith in education of 
the people of the whole land. Education is being looked upon as a 
god of salvation. The interest is so strong and widespread that 
pathetic willingness to seize upon every wind of doctrine and im- 
ported pattern is in evidence on every hand. 

But borrowed practices from other lands are beginning to reveal 
the need for better digested readaptation. We are witnessing that the 
products of the modern schools are among the unemployed and piti- 
fully ineffective in society. These products of modern schools know 
something of the modern subjects as taught in the schools. They 
have learned little or nothing that is practical, and even those who 
are fortunate enough to find employment are not using in their work 
what they have studied in the schools. Criticizing the graduates of 
the middle schools, Huang Yen Pei’ recently writes: “Just look 
at the graduates of the middle schools of the whole country. Every- 
where there is a general state of perturbation. They all complain that 
there is no way to progress further. If you ask for the reason, they 
will say that the curriculum of the middle schools was originally made 

1The New Education, Vol. 11, No. 1, Sept. 1919. 


2 Education for Modernization in China 


for the preparation of students to go to higher technical schools and 
universities, but at the present time the higher institutions are not 
sufficient to supply opportunities for all the middle school graduates ; 
thus to study further for the middle school graduates becomes a 
difficult proposition. When the graduates turn to society and look 
for employment, they find that what they have studied in the schools 
during the four years is by no means sufficient or fitting to meet the 
demands of the various vocations in society. Thus to obtain employ- 
ment also is difficult. Because of these two difficulties, we have to-day 
a large number of middle school graduates turning into drifting and 
perplexed youths that fill the ranks of the unemployed.” 

Dr. Paul Monroe has recently stated at a conference of educators 
in Peking: ‘The middle schools in China are the most important 
but the weakest in the whole school system. The situation needs 
serious consideration since the defects of secondary education pro- 
duce bad results in many ways. Higher education is largely condi- 
tioned by the preparation made in the middle school. And for those 
students who do not attend higher institutions after graduation, the 
middle school should provide enough training to enable them to 
become leaders in the different professions.” * 

It is generally agreed that the secondary school curriculum—as 
well as that of other grades—needs modifications badly and that 
efforts should be directed to the working out of a more effective 
content in view of the urgent needs of the transition in China. It 1s 
the purpose of this inquiry to evolve certain criteria for curriculum 
construction in this transitional period of education. The task of con- 
structing a new curriculum is not the task for any individual worker. 
It will demand cooperative effort on the part of many working in the 
field, Furthermore, whatever is theoretically worked out should go 
through the scrutiny of concrete experimentation. The criteria re- 
sulting from this inquiry will, we hope, have some value in guiding 
the evaluation of current practice, the analysis of the textbooks used 
to-day, and the provision of the essentials of a new and more effec- 
tive content. But it is by no means the aim of this study to devise 
a priori a program of studies for any schools. 

After making an analysis of the government curriculum still in 
force and of the attempts at reform, the inquiry naturally leads us to 
determine, if we can, the immediate aim of Chinese education in view 


1 Reported in Peking Leader, Dec. 29, 1921. 


Introduction a 


of the vast transition in national life, to ascertain the educational 
implications of the aim, and to formulate criteria governing cur- 
riculum construction. An exposition of the criteria arrived at by this 
method of procedure will be given, and this will be followed by the 
suggested ways of application of the proposed criteria in a program 
for curriculum construction in secondary schools. This program will 
include the three steps of investigation, careful and critical planning, 
and experimentation. 


CHAPTER I] 


THE GOVERNMENT MIDDLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 
AND ATTEMPTS AT REFORMATION * 


THE GOVERNMENT CURRICULUM 


When the Republican régime came into being in 1912, the courses 
of study for the schools underwent some inevitable changes.’ The 
middle school decree was promulgated by the Ministry of Education, 
September 28, 1912, and the regulations concerning the detailed sub- 
jects of the curriculum were issued March 19, 1913, This course 
of study was originally constructed mostly out of borrowings from 
foreign school practices, among which the Japanese was the most 
influential. 

The Ministry of Education has prescribed the detailed topics to be 
included in the various subjects as well as the subjects themselves. 
The curriculum in outline is as follows: 


CuRRICULUM 
SUBJECTS YEAR HOURS PER GENERAL TOPICS’ 
WEEK 
Ethics 1 1 Individual conduct 
Social conduct 
2 1 Responsibility to the nation 
Responsibility to society 
3 1 Responsibility to self and family 
Responsibility to humanity 
4 1 Essentials of the science of ethics 


Special characteristics of the mo- 
rality of the nation 


Chinese 1 7 Explanation, reading, composition, 
handwriting 
2 (boys) 7 Same as first year 
(girls) 6 History of the language 
3 5 Same as first year 
Elements of grammar 
4 5 Same as third year 


History of Chinese literature 


* See discussion on the Place and Function of the Middle School in the System, Chap. vit. 
1See Kuo, P. W., The Chinese System of Public Education, Chap. v1, Reorganization 
of Education under the Republic. 


* These are not the detailed topics, which amount to hundreds under each subject and 
are followed by the textbook writers. 


SUBJECTS 


Foreign 
Language 


History 


Geography 


Mathema- 
tics 


Nature 
Study 


Physics 


Chemistry 
Civics 

and 
Economics 


Drawing 


HOURS PER 


WEEK 


(boys) 7 
(girls) 6 


(boys) 8 
(girls) 6 
(boys) 8 
(girls) 6 
(boys) 8 
(girls) 6 


bo bo bh NS bo bo bo bo 


(boys ) 
(girls) 
(boys) 
(girls) 
(boys) 
(girls) 
(boys) 
(girls) 


nO WwW WwW Ww AU HU 


ie) 


(boys) 2 
(girls) 1 


The Government Curriculum 5 


GENERAL TOPICS 


Pronunciation, spelling, reading, 
translation, dictation, conversa- 
tion, grammar, handwriting 


Same as first year 
Construction of sentences 


Same as first year 
Composition 


Same as first year 
History of literature 


Chinese history, ancient and me- 
diaeval 


Chinese history, modern 


History of Eastern Asiatic nations 
History of Western nations 


History of Western nations 
Introduction to geography 
Chinese geography 

Chinese geography 
Geography of foreign nations 
Geography of foreign nations 


Physical geography 
Political geography 


Arithmetic, algebra 
Algebra, plane geometry 
Algebra, plane geometry 


Plane and solid geometry 
Plane trigonometry 


Botany, zoology 


Zoology } 
Physiology and hygiene 


Mineralogy and geology 


Physics-mechanics, heat, sound, 
light, magnetism, electricity 


Chemistry, inorganic and organic 


Elements of civics 
Elements of economics 


Freehand drawing—copying and 
drawing from objects 


Same as first year 


Same as first year 
Geometrical drawing 


Same as third year 
Artistic drawing 


6 


SUBJECTS 


Handwork’ 


Home Eco- 
nomics and 
Gardening 


Sewing 


Music 


Physical 
Training’ 


Total No. 
of Hours 


Education for Modernization in China 


YEAR 


— Bwhy |= PWD HS 


me & Ww bO 


bo 


HOURS PER 
WEEK 


1 
1 
1 
1 
(girls) 2 
(girls) 2 


(girls) 2 
(girls) 2 
(girls) 2 
(girls) 2 
(girls) 2 


a oY 


(boys) 3 
(girls) 2 

Same 

Same 

Same 
(boys) 33 
(girls) 32 
(boys) 34 
(girls) 33 
(boys) 35 
(girls) 34 
(boys) 35 
(girls) 34 


GENERAL TOPICS 


Bamboo and wood work 
Wood and clay 
Clay, plaster, and metal 


Same as third year 
Vocational knowledge 


Household management, household 
hygiene, laundering, cooking 
Planting of vegetables, flowers 


Nursing, household accounting, 
laundering, cooking 
Gardening same as second year 


Same as third year 
Cutting, sewing, mending 
Same 

Same 

Same 

Singing 

Singing and note-reading 
Same as second year 
Singing and instrumental music 
Common exercises 
Military drill 

Same 

Same 

Same 


A perusal of the curriculum as stated here in outline is sufficient 
to reveal its characteristics to anyone acquainted with the develop- 
ment of secondary curricula in other countries. We sum up a few 
of the most doubtful assumptions as follows: 

1. It provides one uniform course without options or electives. 
It assumes that all students are of about equal ability and need the 
same kind of preparation. 

2. It takes for granted that both the higher institutions and the 


1 Handwork for girls consists of embroidery, spinning, making of artificial flowers, etc. 
2 Physical Training for girls consists of dancing, games, etc. 


The Government Curriculum 7 


various vocations in society require the same kind of preliminary 
education. 

3. The subjects in the course are supposed to be elements of 
knowledge that a man with a general education should have. Its 
assumption here is that by studying the various subjects in a 
disconnected, unrelated manner the students will somehow turn out 
to be educated men. Education, therefore, is identified with the 
mastery of certain branches of knowledge in such a way as to be able 
to reproduce the facts in all of them. 

4. The Ministry of Education determines the topics to be em- 
bodied in the textbooks which are required to be approved by the 
Ministry. It is assumed that what is left for the students to do is to 
remember slavishly the content of the subject in order that they 
might successfully pass the required examinations. Such established 
routine may not be altogether unnecessary or undesirable, but surely 
the attitude encouraged in the students is one of forced memory, 
annoyed hatred toward the prescribed subjects, and antipathy towards 
teachers and administrators who personify the authority of unrea- 
sonable demands. 

Criticisms of such an incoherent and inflexible curriculum have 
been numerous and widespread in recent years. In October 1918, a 
Conference of the Middle School Principals’ was called by the Minis- 
try to meet in Peking. There were fifty-eight members aside from 
those connected with the Ministry. They gathered from all parts of 
the country. One of the chief problems discussed was the cur- 
riculum, especially the advisability of gradual introduction of the 
elective system in the secondary schools. They saw clearly that the 
products of the middle schools were not qualified, on the one hand, 
to be readily admitted into higher institutions or, on the other, to 
earn a living in society. Much discussion took place but, as the mem- 
bers were administrators in the system and very few of them were 
qualified to have any new ideas as to ways of reforming current 
practice and furthermore as the powers of the conference were 
limited only to deliberation and suggestion, very little concrete 
result came of the discussion. 

Attempts at reforms were first inaugurated by the more progressive 
private schools, such as Nankai School in Tientsin where the elective 


1 Proceedings of the National Conference of Middle School Principals, Oct. 1918, pub- 
lished by the Ministry. 


\ 


8 Education for Modernization in China 


system was introduced in 1917; the students were given choice from 
among three courses during the third and fourth years. The courses 
were Arts Preparatory, Science Preparatory, and Commercial. As 
the general elective plan has recently been approved by the Ministry 
in the case of the proposed curriculum of the Middle School of the 
Nanking Teachers College, the plan as first introduced in Nankai 
School will not be further discussed. We shall proceed to analyze the 
Nanking reformed curriculum. 


THE NANKING REFORMED CURRICULUM 


In the regulations as submitted to, and approved by, the Ministry 
of Education, the Nanking Teachers College Middle School has modi- 
fied both the aim and the organization of studies for the middle 
school. The aim of the school is stated in a little broader and more 
specific way than Article I of the decree of the Ministry which says, 
“The aim of the middle school is to complete a general education and 
to train for citizenship.” The Nanking modification reads: “The aim 
of this school is to complete a general education and to prepare stu- 
dents for higher institutions or for sociat needs, by Diowicine special 
training in preparatory or practical knowledge and skills.” 

Subjects in the first two years are all prescribed and in the last two 
years a part is prescribed and a part elective. Electives are grouped 
in two departments, Preparatory and Vocational. 

The unit system is used in crediting work done by the students. 
One hour per week per term makes one unit, for practice and labora- 
tory two hours. Graduation requires the completion of 228 units. 
The first two years require 30 units each term. Students who take 
36 units per term throughout the third and fourth years, may grad- 
uate in three years and half. The slower students who can take but 
21 units per term, graduate in four years and half. But the normal 
period for graduation is four years. 


1 The writer was at that time serving as acting principal of the school. 
2 By order of the Ministry, Feb. 19, 1921. 
# Published in Journal of Ministry of Education, April 1921. 


The Government Curriculum 


TABLE I 
REQUIRED SUBJECTS 


A. FOR THE FIRST TWO YEARS 


SUBJECT First YEAR 
1st TERM 2ND TERM 

SUCRE Pelee Lh. PL roa 1 1 
Piveital <1 raining 350). oe: 6 3 3 
OO Nineehaie. seg alias Lote 7 7 
TORT POE PGE Ae, Dg ony ad enraee 7 V/ 
MMRNBITATICS§ oo iG ok ue os 6 6 
Chinese History .......... 3 3 
Chinese Geography ....... a Bs 
Physiology and Hygiene.. 1 1 
PeatU rere Ste van cece ia ie) a, « on ee 
Bla WINS Mie ao te als ik Cathe rice < 1 1 
RA TIRIC ies Ge eek Sake ee sims 1 1 
PRAIA OTICE Oo atic Sueg es os me ne 
Vocational Guidance....... 

eGtanelinitewreca. 30 30 


B. FOR THE THIRD AND FOURTH YEARS 


SUBJECT THIRD YEAR 
IsT TERM 2ND TERM 

Spinecee ae tate. ieee. 3 a 
PONE SH ge Pie nine ke sae: « 6 6 
Mathematics... .fccs ns ss 2 2 
CUT Ge yee la em eee Ke a3 
itySiCeeco is ao are vse oh ies 4 4 
Pivsiale | Paling .c26.!.<.. 2 2 

‘Eotals Uiitss.<.. i v4 17 


SECOND YEAR 
2ND TERM 


IsT TERM 


ww &! AnAnNeY 


FourtH YEAR 
2ND TERM 


1sT TERM 


3 
4 
2 
4 
2 


15 


3 


4 
fs 
4 

2 

15 


Among the electives, a large variety is offered, distributed among 
the courses in the Preparatory and Vocational Departments. At the 
present time the school has only one course in the Vocational Depart- 
ment, namely, Teacher Training. As illustration, the electives in two 
of the courses in the Preparatory Department are listed below. 


SuBJECT 


English 


essere eeeeereeree 


erleeo eee eee e eres 


TABLE II 
ELECTIVE SUBJECTS 


A, ARTS PREPARATORY 


First TERM 


eee weer er ere ele ee ee 


eee eee ere eer ee eeee 


Sociology and Economics....... 
Felemerits (Ot LogiCs 8 crs Seeks 
Elements of Philosophy......... 
PION Wore’, oe oG ve bee eain es ea eS 


ew oF 6. 6 


+ 82.6) Ce 6 Be 


eee ew wae 


WNHNMWWiW 


SEcoND TERM 


WQNDNWwWwiu 


10 Education for Modermzation in China 


B. INDUSTRIAL PREPARATORY 


SuBJECT First TERM Seconp TERM 
Higher “Algebta 47.5. aeetice eae ees ane 3 3 
Practical: Mechanicsi; 70, acne seen ee: 3 3 
Manual Waele ore eas was Se ae 3 3 
MechnnicaliDeaming? i: 3s. ck beens oeas o- 2 2 
Engines fands Motors...-533 tt eee ee eee 2 | 
Material Destme tert tee cat aoe ees s 
Mechanical Engineering ..........:...... 3 


The regulations also indicate the Hens topics in the contents of 
the various subjects of study. The topics in the subjects of Chinese 
and Mathematics are given below. 


CHINESE 


A. FIRST TWO YEARS. 7 HRS. A WEEK, REQUIRED 


1, Reading: (a) Classic literature, artistic and practical. 
(6) Modern literature. 

2. Composition: 

First year, Composition 3 times a month. 

Comments and readings once a month. 

Second Year, Composition and comments twice a month. 
3. History of language: Origin of sounds, meaning of words, etc. 
National tongue and phonetic alphabet. 
Handwriting. 


Saree 


B. THIRD AND FOURTH YEARS. 3 HRS. A WEEK. REQUIRED 


1. Reading: (a) Classic literature. 
(b) Modern literature. 


Z. Composition and comments each once a month. 


C. GENERAL ELECTIVE FOR THIRD AND FOURTH YEARS. 3 HRS. A WEEK 
1. Reading: Selections from classical sources to supplement the required 
course. 
2. Grammar and elementary rhetoric. 


D. ARTS PREPARATORY ELECTIVE FOR THIRD AND FOURTH YEARS. 5 HRS, A WEEK 
1. Reading: Selections from classic artistic literature with a view to lead- 
ing to a special study of Chinese literature. 
2. Literary history: (a) History of Chinese literature 
(b) History of Western literature. 


MATHEMATICS 


A, FIRST TWO YEARS. 6 HRS. A WEEK. REQUIRED 


1. Arithmetic: First term first year, 3 hrs. a week. 
To supplement higher elementary school arithmetic, em- 
phasizing fractions, percentage, ratio, and square roots. 


The Government Curriculum | 


2. Mathematics: First term, first year, 3 hrs. a week. 
Second term, 6 hrs. 
Text: Breslich’s Mathematics, Vol. I, translated. 
Second year—Text: Breslich’s Vol. II in English. 


B. THIRD AND FOURTH YEARS, 2 HRS. A WEEK. REQUIRED 


1. Solid Geometry in third year. 
Text: Wentworth and Smith’s in English. 


2. Plane Trigonometry in fourth year. 
Text: Wentworth’s in English. 


C. SCIENCE OR ENGINEERING ELECTIVE FOR THIRD AND FOURTH YEARS. 3 HRS. A WEEK 


1. Higher Algebra for third year. 
Text: Hawkes’ in English. 


2. Analytic Geometry for fourth year. 
Text: Wentworth’s in English. 


Advances Made. By comparing the provisions in the Nanking cur- 
riculum with those in the stiff and uniform curriculum decreed by 
the Ministry of Education, certain distinct advances made may be 
clearly seen. They are along the following general lines: 


1. The aim of the middle school has increased in clearness, speci- 
fying the two chief functions of the middle school in leadership edu- 
cation, namely, preparatory to entering higher institutions, and train- 
ing in vocations for direct usefulness upon leaving the middle school. 


2. The course of study is made flexible enough to suit individual 
interests and qualifications of the students, allowing electives in the 
third and fourth years and providing for different rates of progress 
for students of varied talents. : 

3. The administration of the subjects of study is improved by the 
introduction of the unit system so that, if a student fails in one sub- 
ject, he does not have to repeat all the subjects of the same year. 


4. Attention is given to a survey of local conditions and social 
needs in determining the subjects to be offered in the vocational 
courses. Here at least a beginning is made in looking away from 
the formulated studies as such to the vital and changeable needs of 
the immediate environment. 

The tendencies as embodied in the Nanking curriculum are very 
encouraging in the direction of a new content. They are gradually 


12 Education for Modernization in China 


being recognized by the more progressive of the middle schools in the 
educationally more advanced provinces.’ 

Vital Questions Not Yet Touched. The problem of an adequate 
and effective content in secondary education is, however, a very 
complex one. By looking into the Nanking curriculum a little more 
closely, we discover vital aspects of the problem that are not at all 
touched. For instance: 

1. The content is still predominantly a knowledge content; that 
is, the curriculum assumes that, by teaching the students various 
disconnected and unrelated formulated studies, the powers and abil- 
ities as required by the concrete and practical needs of the country 
at the present day will somehow be acquired. 

2. There is yet needed a thoroughgoing re-examination of the 
subject matter to be prescribed or included in the various formulated 
studies. For instance, is it necessary that the students should study 
all the various processes and facts in the conventional textbooks of, 
let us say, arithmetic, geography, history, physics, or economics? And 
how shall we proceed to discriminate among the topics in these various 
studies? How can we decide if a formulated secondary school sub- 
ject, such as mathematics, should be taken over in toto from another 
country and put directly into the Chinese middle schools? What 
should be our criteria of judgment for the selection of topics and 
facts in any branch of study in view of the needs of the present 
transition? 

In order to strive for the most economical and most effective 
content for Chinese education, we need to analyze more clearly the 
needs of the period that we have called the transition. It is our im- 
perative task, first, to see what is the significance of this all-inclusive 
and all-pervasive movement in national life; second, to ascertain the 
educational implications that can be drawn by looking carefully into 
the conditioning circumstance of the characteristics that we desire in 
the transition period; and third, to formulate these implications into 
criteria for curriculum-making governing the choice of the type of 
training to be given in the schools as well as the choice of detailed 
subject matter within a formulated study. 


1The National Conference of Provincial Educational Associations at Canton, October 
1921, recommended a 6-3-3 plan for the reorganization of the school system. If this plan 
is finally adopted, the curricula for the Junior and Senior Middle Schools will need to be 
reconstructed. But this will not alter to any extent the principle of electives underlying 
the Nanking curriculum. Neither will it affect the criticism of that curriculum made later 
in this chapter. 

2 See discussion on the Uses and Abuses of Formulated Studies, Chap. vit. 

® Foreign textbooks used in Nanking Curriculum: Breslich’s Mathematics, Wentworth 
and Smith’s Solid Geometry, Wentworth’s Plane Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry, ete. 


CHAPTER III 


SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TRANSITION AND AIM OF 
EDUCATION 


Must China Change. How China will be transformed under the 
present impact of the modern nations, involving as it does a surpris- 
ingly large section of humanity—about one fifth of the population of 
the whole earth—will be a matter of no mean importance. But must 
China change? What is the urge behind such a strenuous and waste- 
ful process? What is the true import of the transformation? 

Coming in contact with the modern nations, in the past century 
especially, China has suffered defeat and humiliation in many kinds 
of competition, military, political, industrial, and cultural. All the 
injured dispositions of self-regard and apprehensions of impending 
danger fiercely force the younger generation to Jook for ways that 
can make China modern and strong. China is not becoming modern- 
ized simply because it is the fashion of the world to-day, although 
there are minor forces that help to augment the desire for change, 
such as the contagion of comfort and luxury, and the prestige of 
imported modes. 

But doubt is still sometimes voiced by our foreign friends whether 
it is wise for China to change her ways and to enter into the hot 
caldron of assertiveness and confusion. Recently there appeared in 
Asia Magazine for May and June, 1921, two articles by Professor 
Dewey and Mr. J. O. P. Bland, debating the issue, the latter main- 
taining that a line should be drawn at leaving the moral and social 
system of the old régime undisturbed. It is, however, only too clear | 
to any student of sociology that you cannot draw any line between 
the economical and mechanical devices and the moral and social 
system in any culture. The simple fact is that when you change one, 
the other is bound to be affected sooner or later. But what is sinister 
in suggestions like Mr. Bland’s is in their advocacy, at the same time, . 
of foreign control of the nation’s financial administration, which be- 
trays their motivation, intentioned or otherwise. To keep the old 
social and moral system intact is to give the country no chance of 


14 Education for Modernization in China 


producing a strong and capable leadership that can cope with modern 
economic problems; because it is the pride of the old system that all 
individuals should know their places and not be encouraged to grow 
to such strength as to “rock the balance of the social boat.’ In order 
to be effective in the present-day world, even as conservatives, each 
one needs to be equipped with the wide-awake outlook and the strong 
enlightened individuality which only the modernized social and moral 
institutions can produce. 

China must change, and change very rapidly until a state of more 
or less adjusted equilibrium is reached. But by modernization we do , 
not imply that China must, even if she could, go through all the stages 
of change that the modern nations have gone through. For China the | 
process is readjustment and not mere appropriation or reproduction. \ 
The products of modernism already formed can serve very well as 
hypotheses, but should not be too blindly or too closely followed as 
infallible models. Our main effort should be to reach the real moving 
current of the stream, if we can, not to be eternally picking up debris 
on the dry shore. 

Modernization as an Immediate Aim of Education. China needs 
men and women that are creatively modern in powers and capacities. 
This is our most vital need and consequently constitutes the imme- 
diate aim of education in China. 

In order to derive educational implications from this aim, it is 
profitable to quote here Professor Dewey’s analysis of how aims are 
usually formulated, “Roughly speaking, the course of forming aims 
is as follows. The beginning is with a wish, an emotional reaction 
against the present state of things and the hope for something differ- 
ent. Action fails to connect satisfactorily with surrounding condi- 
tions. Thrown back upon itself, it projects itself in an imagination of 
a scene which, if it were present, would afford satisfaction. This 
picture is often called an aim, more often an ideal. But in itself it is 
a fancy which may be only a fantasy, a dream, a castle in the air. 

It becomes an aim or end only when it is worked out in 
terms of concrete conditions available for its realization, that is in 
terms of ‘means’.”* “A fancy becomes an aim,” continues the analy- 
sis, “when some past sequence of known cause-and-effect is projected 
into the future, and when by assembling its casual conditions we 
strive to generate a like result. We have to fall back upon what has 


1 Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct, p. 234. 


Transition and Aim of Education 15 


already happened naturally without design, and study it to see how tt 
happened, which is what is meant by causation. [The italics are 
mine.] This knowledge joined to wish creates a purpose.” * 

The “wish” to become qualified with modern powers is present and 
very strong in the youths of China. It remains the task of the educa- 
tors to provide the “knowledge” of how the modern world has become 
modern “naturally without design.” In the following chapter an 
attempt will be made to suggest a hypothesis of the dynamic condi- 
tioning circumstance that has made the modern world modern. 

But our chief interest in taking up this inquiry is not at all in the 
thorny and thankless field of the interpretation of history. We are 
obliged to look for this “knowledge” of how the modern world has 
become modern in order that the “wish” to become modern may 
become a properly functioning aim. If we can ascertain—for prac- | 
tical purposes—the conditioning circumstance or circumstances that | 
have made the western world creatively modern, then by providing | 
educational substitutes for these circumstances in our schools, we may 
hope to induce and develop most economically and effectively the 
fundamental powers and abilities of modern men in the coming gen- 
eration of China’s youths. We may also hope, thus, to save ourselves 
the waste and embarrassment of futilely chasing around in a circle 
in the desperate “‘wish” to become. modernized. 

Furthermore, by taking modernization as the immediate aim, we 
have not only satisfied the urgent demands of the existing conditions, 
but also provided ourselves with the necessary flexibility in approach- 
ing the problem of the preservation of the time-honored culture. 
Modernization is a process. It will call for certain indispensable 
modern products in the development of the process. But it does not 
commit itself to uphold any crystallized formulations of the modern © 
West to the entire detriment of the norms and formulations of the old 
culture. It emphasizes the process rather than the products. The old 
culture furnishes the basic experiences to be modernized. 

Chief Characteristics of Modern Culture. Among the outstanding 
charactéristic expressions of the modern spirit, the first in importance 
is generally acknowledged to be the scientific method. Professor 
Veblen writes: “The characteristic bent of the intellectual life among 
the peoples of modern Christiandom, as distinguished from what has 
prevailed elsewhere and in other times, is the animus that shows itself 


1 Dewey, John, op. cit., p. 235. 


16 Education for Modermzation in China 


in the mechanistic conception. This may be little to the credit of 
modern Christiandom, but the fact remains that only at this point 
has the culture of modern Christiandom outrun the known civiliza- 
tions that have gone before.” * The strict adherence to sense-data, 
as finally authoritative, the persistent search for verifiable generaliza- 
tions only, the logical refinement of the casual mechanism and the 
industrial applications thereof—these achievements of modern science 
are too evident to need any further exposition. 

Another characteristic expression which has been noticed by many 
_ is the enhancement of the liberties and rights of the individual. From 
the Renaissance to the present hour there has been a succession of 
waves of increasing individualization in the rights of the individual 
to think for himself, to believe according to his own conscience, to 
obey only the laws in which he has a part in making, and to work 
in occupations which he can share in managing. Along with the rise 
of democratic desire there has gone hand in hand a striking growth of 
confidence in the strength of the individual, in his perfectibility, his 
educability, his creative intelligence. 

Science, individuality, and democracy are indisputably the authentic 
voices of the modern age. 

The glorious blossoming of modern Europe for the last four hun- 
dred years, epitomized in such movements as the Scientific Discover- 
ies, the Industrial Revolution, Nationalism and Democracy, at first 
bewilders one who comes from another culture. But before this 
modern period began what was the condition of Europe? Was she 
far ahead of certain older countries in those days? The only definable 
answer is no. What seems then to be the conditioning circumstance 
that has contributed most to the change of direction in modern 
Europe of the last four hundred years? 

Was it not Expansion—primarily the sudden and extensive Expan- 
sion of theEuropearr- peoples following the discovery of America— 
that conditioned the great marvellous strides of modern Europear 
progress? Is not this the chief dynamic factor that has necessitated 
and called forth the scientific method of approach, the democratic 
desire for equality, and the powerful and self-confident individuality ? 

The reasons for this surmise will be stated more explicitly in the 
succeeding chapter. 


‘Veblen, T., Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution, p. 105. 


CHAPTER IV 


CHIEF CONDITIONING CIRCUMSTANCE OF 
MODERN PROGRESS 


The Problem Defined. The hypothesis as summarily put forth at 
the close of the last chapter has perhaps aroused greater anticipa- 
tion than the content of this chapter can hope to satisfy. It must 
be stated again that it is not the purpose of this inquiry to in- 
dulge in historical speculation. The immediate interest in this 
attempt to ascertain the chief conditioning circumstance of how 
the modern world has become modern is an extremely practical 
one, It forms a necessary step in a program of education. The 
knowledge of the process of modernization of the European 
peoples is indispensable in view of the intense desire and utter 


urgency on the part of the Chinese to become modern also. Edu- ) 


cation is a form of conscious control. It attempts to shorten the 
natural process in some effective manner. The natural process, 
therefore, if clearly discerned, may well give valuable sugges- 
tion as to*how conscious control can be effective. 

But even a brief glimpse into what the problem involves al- 
ready suggests bristling diversities of opinion. At the outset, 
therefore, it is necessary to indicate the method to be followed in 
the treatment of this chapter. Quotations from modern writers 
will be liberally resorted to. An annotated and selected bibliog- 
raphy. is attached at the end of the book for those who are inclined 
to search further into the validity of the hypothesis. The writer 
may return to this theoretical inquiry when leisure shall permit, 
but he definitely refrains from that undertaking in the present 
connection. 


Expansion of Europe. As an introduction, it seems best to quote 
Professor William R, Shepherd.’ Regarding the modern histori- 
cal movements, Professor Shepherd writes: “The ‘Renaissance,’ 
the ‘Reformation,’ the ‘French Revolution,’ the ‘Industrial Revo- 
lution,’ ‘Nationalism and Democracy,’ have been examined, de- 


2 Three articles on ‘The Expansion of Europe’’ published in the Political Science Quar- 
terly, 1919, 


eel 


18 Education for Modernization in China 


scribed and evaluated with reference to the particular period of 
which they form a part. But a movement greater than these and 
contemporaneous with them has been comparatively ignored. 
Actually they seem to have been born and bred in Europe alone, 
and thus to have communicated their influence to the rest of the 
world; and yet, how far were they in reality the product of 
Europe’s ventures beyond its own frontiers; and if not wholly the 
product, how far was their inception or development affected by 
such ventures oversea and overland in distant portions of the 
earth? This is a question that has remained substantially with- 
out an answer.” 

To this question, Professor Shepherd has made more than a 
suggestive contribution. He outlines the whole field and pre- 
pares the ground for future investigators. He sees that “the his- 
tory of the Expansion of Europe . . . includes colonization 
and vastly more.” It embraces “the indebtedness of the rest of 
the world to Europe and the indebtedness of Europe to the rest of 
the world, in all that counts for the general progress of civiliza- 
tion in modern times.” “The concept is divisible into two phases, 
of which one may be called the ‘outward,’ and the other the 
‘homeward,’ movement, The former concerns the transmission 
of European ideas and institutions and the modifications they 
undergo in contact with their new environment. The latter be- 
tokens the results that follow for Europe itself—the influence 
of such activities upon European civilization proper, and in par- 
ticular upon the local life and thought of the nations more direct- 
ly engaged in the work of expansion.” 

Discussing the effects of the “homeward” movement, the ana- 
lysis continues: “From all that expansion has evoked in spirit 
and attainment—the zest of enterprise, eagerness for adventure, 
fame, wealth, new scenes and new homes, new places on the earth 
where a greater comfort and happiness might be assured, the in- 
troduction of the unknown and an increased use of the known— 
from its contact, in a word, with new lands and new peoples in 
America, Asia, Africa and the isles of the sea, Europe has derived 
new impulses and new developments.” 

1Pohtical Science Quarterly, 1919, p. 47. 


2 Tbid., p. 61. 
3 Tbid., p. 211. 


Chief Conditioning Circumstance of Modern Progress 19 


For the purposes of this chapter, it is unnecessary to follow 
through all these “new impulses and new developments.” Two 
phases are singled out for special attention, namely, Science and 
the Rise of Democracy. These are characteristic expressions of 
modern culture that have more than transient significance. 


Expansion and Modern Scientific Method. Concerning the condi- 
tions that contributed to make the scientific type of thinking pos- 
sible, Professor Shepherd writes: “The provincialism of an old 
order, resting on tradition and authority, keeping a section of 
mankind isolated from its fellows and maintaining it in ignorance 
and routine, has broken down before a tremendous broadening of 
contact with different stages of civilization over the entire earth. 
Ancient, biblical and patristic domination of the mind has been 
overthrown by the rise of a rational and scientific concept of the 
universe and the systematization of learning in that regard. 
From the forces thus engendered the thought of Europe may be 
said to have been affected in three ways: first, through the im- 
pulse given to the revival of a secular outlook on life, an appre- 
ciation of worldly things and human relationships; second, 
through the arousing of curiosity and interest, which has con- 
duced to philosophic and scientific inquiry; and third, through 
the enhancement of credulity and imagination along lines that 
have assured an acquisition of wider fields of expression in liter- 
ary and artistic endeavor. 

“To an age of vague notions about the outer world has suc- 
ceeded an era of explorers, travelers and investigators who have 
been able to demonstrate the truth or falsity of such ideas by 
actual evidence. Verification could thus become a possibility, and 
from a possibility a habit. [The italics are mine.| Through the re- 
ports that have been furnished and the things that have been 
gathered the faculty of close observation has.been developed. It 
has been practicable, accordingly, to specialize in the examina- 
tion of what is characteristic of a single phenomenon or of groups of 
phenomena world-wide in their distribution, and eventually to discuss 
the supreme problem of the origin and destiny of man and his relation 
to the universe in which he dwells.’”” 

To quote from another writer* concerning the influence of 


(Tbsd., p. 393. 
2 Kohl, J. G., A Popular History of the Discovery of America, 2 vols. Translated by 
R. R. Noel, London, Chapman and Hall, 1862. 


20 Education for Modernization in China 


Expansion on the development of science: “Until the age of dis- 
covery, natural sciences and geography were confined to very nar- 
row limits. Until then they were cramped by the doctrines of 
Aristotle, of Pliny, and Ptolemy, whose rule had endured two 
thousand years! Natural history had made no progress since the 
days of Aristotle; and no one had dared to question the astro- 
nomical system of Ptolemy. 

“In the middle ages, instead of astronomy, we had astrology; 
instead of physics, magic; instead of chemistry, alchemy; natural 
science resembled, so to speak, a mummy tightly swathed in an- 
cient ligaments, which the learned men had handed down from 
generation to generation as they had received it from the Egyp- 
tians and Greeks.” * 

Developing the same theme, Kohl continued, “The daring voy- 
age of Columbus across the ocean had burst many bonds, had 
dissipated many prejudices, awakened a new and bold freedom of 
thought. On all sides the view became extended, and the spirit 
of inquiry greatly strengthened. New ideas in one department 
gave rise to new ideas in another. In the same year in which 
Columbus died, Copernicus discovered his new system of the 
universe; in the same year in which Cortez conquered Tenoch- 
titlan, Luther burnt the Pope’s bull at Wittenburg; at the time 
when Frobisher attempted to sail round the North of America, 
Pope Gregory XIII improved the calendar.” ’ 

As to the influence of expansion on the development of the 
specific sciences, it is sufficient to give here a list of the sciences 
that Professor Shepherd analyzed in the last * of his three articles. 
The list comprises such sciences as the following: geography, 
historiography, archeology, international law, anthropology, com- 
parative philology, comparative religion, sociology, astronomy, 
oceanography, physics, chemistry, geology, palaeontology, biol- 
ogy, etc. 

How the development of Science in modern times has been 
conditioned by the circumstance of expansion may be summed 
up as follows: 

1. Expansion has given a widened basis for analogy and con- 

1 Kohl, op. cit., Vol. 11, p. 267. 


3 Ibid., Vol. 11, p. 273. 
8 Shepherd, of. cit., pp. 392-412. 


Chief Conditioning Circumstance of Modern Progress 21 


trasts. It has extended the possibility for the collection of data. 
(Witness the coming into existence of museums, zoological and 
botanical gardens, and Bacon’s idea of Solomon’s House in The 
New Atlantis.) 

2. Explorations and frontier experiences have stimulated the 
faith in objective sense-evidence. “Columbus, Cortez, and Ma- 
gellan, and all the other Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, 
were careful observers of nature. In the new world they found 
much to attract their attention, for, if some things were similar 
to those in Europe, yet none were exactly alike, and the greater 
number entirely different.”* Since that time objective evidences 
have been increasing in dignity and usefulness. 

3. The expansive outlook has inspired hypotheses in Science. 
Every modern scientist is a romanticist with most exuberant 
faith in the future. He wills to create a new heaven and a new 
earth by his magic, for modern science is a form of magic espe- 
cially in its theoretical basis.’ 

4. The demands of practical usefulness as made imperative 
in frontier existence have stimulated the mechanistic conception 
in the casual basis of scientific thinking, as well as favored the 
use and invention of labor-saving devices in the applications of 
Science. The development of mechanical devices especially 
among Anglo-Saxon peoples is analyzed by Strong: “The mul- 
tiplication of machinery is as inevitable as if governed by a law 
of natural increase and especially is this true among a pioneer 
people like the Anglo-Saxon. In a new country there is always 
more work to be done than workmen to do it. A labor-saving de- 
vice is, therefore, at a premium. Anglo-Saxons have for genera- 
tions been on the frontier of civilization. By virtue of its train- 
ing, therefore, the Anglo-Saxon mind naturally travels by the 
hypothenuse; it insists on the short cut, though that involves tun- 
neling a mountain or severing an isthmus. It studies economy of 
time, of distance, of material, of power. In a word, it is inventive 
of labor-saving machinery and methods. Moreover, invention 
stimulates invention. The successful application of a principle in 
one sphere suggests its application in another. A new chemical 
triumph often prepares the way for a new mechanical triumph.’” 


1 Kohl, of. cit., p. 268. 
2See Veblen, T., The Place of Science in Modern Civilization, pp. 1-55. 
2 Strong, Josiah, Expansion Under New World-Conditions, p. 78. 


az Education for Modernization in China 


Expansion and the Rise of Modern Democracy. Kohl indicated the 
general significance of the New World in the development of 
democracy; he wrote, “Beginning with Columbus, when he 
planted his little towns in Hispafiola, it had been seen that a 
certain equality of rank is necessary to the founding of a colony. 
This principle, as old as the American colonies, was loudly pro- 
nounced when the free states threw off the English yoke. In 
their celebrated Declaration of Independence, they proclaimed 
that ‘all men are born free and equal.’ This American phrase 
and declaration acted like oil upon the flames of the French 
Revolution, and since then, partly receiving it from America, a 
democratic tendency is perceptible in the human race.” * 

As to the specific influences of expansion on the emancipation 
of the masses in the nations of western Europe, Professor W. G. 
Sumner contributed a very suggestive analysis. He wrote, “In 
the enumeration of the great forces of class change which oper- 
ated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, I have reserved one 
for more special attention. The adventurous voyagers who began 
to explore the outlying parts of the earth in the fifteenth century 
thought little and cared less about the peasants and artisans at 
home; but it was they more than any others who were fighting 
for the fortunes of those classes in the future. The very greatest, 
but, so far as I have seen, least noticed significance of the discov- 
ery of America was the winning of a new continent for the labor 
class. . . . If you have abundance of land and few men to 
share it, the men will all be equal. Each landholder will be his 
own tenant and his own laborer. Social classes disappear. Wages 
are high. The mass of men, apart from laziness, folly and vice, 
are well off. . . . The outlying continents affect not only 
those who go to them but also the whole labor class who stay 
at home. Even while they stay there the pressure of the whole 
reachable land-supply weighs upon the labor market and the land 
market at home; and it makes wages high, food cheap, and the 
rent of land low, all at once. That is what exalts the laborer and 
abases the landed aristocrat, working both ways in behalf of de- 
mocracy and equality.” 

The same hypothesis is further expounded: “With more land, 


1 Kohl, op. cit., Vol. 11, p. 266. 
2 Sumner, W. G., Earth Hunger or the Philosophy of Land Grabbing, pp. 41-3 (1896). 


Chief Conditioning Circumstance of Modern Progress 23 


there are higher wages, because no one will work for wages which 
are convertible into less goods than the laborer could get out of 
the land when used in the most lavish and wasteful manner. 
With more land, the manual unskilled laborer is raised in com- 
parison with the skilled and educated laborer, that is, the masses 
are raised in comparison with the classes. When there is plenty 
of land, the penalties of all social follies, vices, and ignorance are 
light. Each man has plenty of the “rights of man” because he 
need only be, in order to be a valuable member of society ; he does 
not need high training and education, as he would in an old and 
crowded society with a strict organization, high discipline, in- 
tense competition, and weighty sanctions upon success or 
failure.” 

As a concrete case, Becker analyzes the rise of democracy in 
the back country of early Virginia as follows: “Here there were 
no great estates, no slaves, and few ‘servants,’ no houses with 
pretensions to architectural excellence, no leisured class with 
opportunities or inclinations for acquiring the manners or the 
tastes of the ‘gentleman.’ Here every man earned his bread by 
the sweat of his brow, manners were rude and primitive, institu- 
tions were simple, men lived close to the soil, equality was a fact, 
and freedom was limited only by the stubborn resistance of 
nature.” 

And in regard to the significance of American continental ex- 
pansion, Becker writes, ‘““The story of this steady advance across 
the continent is the great epic of American history. . . . But 
there is more in this story than a tale of adventure; rightly told, 
it will reveal the secret of American history—the persistence of demo- 
cratic ideals which flourish in the simple and primitive conditions of 
a frontier society.” [The italics are mine. ] 

To sum up the influences of expansion on the development of 
democracy: 

1. Opportunities for expansion have contributed to make so- 
cial distinctions within the group unnecessary and intolerable. 
“The idea of equality which the frontier developed was not an 
equality of rewards and possessions, it was an idea of equality of) 
opportunity and of reward according to merit." 


1 Sumner, op. cit., “p. 45. 
2 Becker, Carl, The United States an Experiment in Democracy, p. 37. 
* Tbid., p. 160. 
4 Tbid., p. 172. 


24 Education for Modernization in China 


2. Expansion experiences have enhanced individual growth 
and assertion. In order to succeed in primitive frontier life, a 
man needs to develop his individual initiative. Becker writes, 
“He had to pit his strength and his resourcefulness against the 
stubborn resistance and inertia of the uncleared forest or the un- 
tilled prairie. There was no paternal government to fall back 
upon, and no settled social custom to direct or to restrain him. At 
every step he must decide what to do and how to do it; and upon 
these decisions his success or failure in acquiring the bare neces- 
sities of life, and often in preserving life itself, depended. 

In developing the spirit of individual initiative and self-confi- 
dence, the frontier gave to men a strong sense of individual 
liberty.”” 

Furthermore, because of the infinite expansive outlook, a glow- 
ing future alluring onward, and a promising field for every one 
who has the desire and strength to expand in, individual will has 
been greatly enhanced. Hence the origin of the modern worship 
of the Will, such as the Will to Live, the Will to Power, the Will 
to Believe, and the Will to Will. 

3. Qualities of cooperation within the group have been ele- 
vated because of challenging opportunities in expansion, and 
dangers of competition due to expansion. This cooperative side 
of the moderns should not be overlooked. In contrast to long- 
settled communities, they have more cause to love the group, just 
because there are dangers around and adventures ahead. Hence 
they have been more consciously disposed to adopt measures of 
group cooperation and improvement. 


The Practical Use of This Hypothesis. It seems necessary in 
conclusion to point out that any historical hypothesis, as hypoth- 
eses in all types of human thinking, is based necessarily on things 
that have already happened. To maintain that the rise of the scien- 
tific method and the development of democratic practices and ideals 
have been conditioned by the experiences of expansion, by no 
means precludes the possibility of science or democracy when ex- 
pansion ceases. For the purpose of this inquiry, it is sufficient to 
know what circumstances have favored the development of 
science and democracy so that educational substitutes can be set 


1 Becker, op. cit., p. 170. 


Chief Conditioning Circumstance of Modern Progress — 25 


up in the Chinese schools in order to promote and stimulate scien- 
tific and democratic attitudes. To go into the theoretical conten- 
tion as to whether democracy and scientific method will continue 
when expansion comes to an end, and what directions they will 
take in the future, lies outside the province of the present inquiry. 

Suppose, however, that the chief conditioning circumstance of 
modern progress is granted for practical purposes and suppose 
further that educational substitutes for it are provided in the 
Chinese schools, it might still be questioned whether the Chinese 
so trained would find room for expansion in their own environ- 
ment. To this it may be assured that it is quite possible for the 
methods and ideals produced under a certain set of natural cir- 
cumstances, once they have been consciously formulated by man, 
to exist independent of the circumstances that originally pro- 
duced them. Furthermore, there are in China actual opportuni- 
ties for expansion, even of the material kind, such as the wide 
territories in Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, and Tibet, the 
vast natural resources waiting everywhere to be developed, the 
opportunity for the extension of modern means of transportation 
and communication, the re-building of the cities, the possibilities 
of manufacturing, of mining, etc. 

The nation is eagerly waiting for men and women with modern 
training. There need be no fear whatsoever that there will not 
be enough challenging opportunities for them to exercise their 
expansive attitudes, abilities, and ideals. The urgent need is for 
the effective type of education that can produce such attitudes 
and abilities. 


1 See discussion under Criterion rv in Chapter v1. 


CHAPTER V 


FRONTIER EXPERIENCE IN MODERN EDUCATIONAL 
APPROACH 


Instead of following through the whole modern period in the 
chronological order, analyzing how modern tendencies in educa- 
tional approach from Bacon, Locke, Rousseau, to the prevailing 
quantitative method of the present day, have drawn upon the 
experiences of the various phases of modern expansion, such as 
exploring, pioneering, frontier community-building, large-scale 
producing and the like, it is deemed advisable to proceed by a less 
ambitious but more practical path. In the brief space of this chap- 
ter one specific tendency in educational approach will be dis- 
cussed. It is typically modern. It_is taken from American expe-_ 
rience, and it has its close relation especially to the problem of 
curriculum construction—the field in educational endeavor that 
concerns directly the purpose of this inquiry. It can best be sum- 
marized in the Concept of Continuity of Professor Dewey. 

This will be dealt with not so much as a technique of thought 
in itself, but as it is related to, and has drawn upon, the experi- 
ences of modern expansion. It will be the task of the Chinese 
educators to make use of the valuable modern experiences in 
terms of our own peculiar needs in the education for mod- 
ernization. 


DEWEY AND THE CONCEPT OF CONTINUITY 


His Place in Educational Thought. One historian of education 
has named Professor John Dewey “the foremost American inter- 
preter, in terms of the school, of the vast social and industrial 
changes which have marked the nineteenth century.”* And an- 
other has characterized him as being “the one who has done more 
than any one else’ in the movement that “harmonizes the con- 
flicting ideas of the old tendencies.”* Professor Dewey is ac- 


1 Cubberley, E. P., History of Education, p. 780. 
2 Monroe, P., History of Education, p. 755. 


Frontier Experience in Modern Educational Approach ‘A 


knowledged by the educational world to-day as the leading edu- 
cational thinker in recent times. In the intellectual transforma- 
tion that is going on in China to-day, we can trace the distinct 
contributions he has made both by his personal visit to China 
and by his writings. This gives us additional interest in ana- 
lyzing his views as they may bear upon the needs of a new educa- 
tion for China’s modernization. 


The Basic Conception in His Philosophy. Philosophy to Professor 
Dewey, of course, is never a formal thing. It is “thinking what 
the known demands of us—what responsive attitudes it exacts. 

It presents an assignment of something to be done— 
something to be tried. Its value lies not in furnishing solutions 
(which can be achieved only in action) but in defining difficulties 
and suggesting methods for dealing with them.” * 

Following his own method, let us see what are some of the 
“difficulties” which he has found most challenging to his thought. 
No thinker has ever shown so much annoyance toward all forms 
of dualisms in thought and conduct as Professor Dewey. As an 
illustration, we list a few such dualisms here below:’ 


Mind and matter 

The individual and society 
Labor and leisure 

Practical and intellectual activity 
Culture and vocation 

Empirical and rational 

The particular and the universal 
Doing and knowing 

Intellect and emotions 

The motive and the consequences 
The spiritual and the physical 
Duty and interest 

Intelligence and character 


In contrast to the dualistic types of thinking, Professor Dewey 
sets up his concept of continuity which is the central message of his 
philosophy. Underlying his concept of continuity are some very 


1 Dewey, John, Democracy and Education, p. 381. 
2 These are taken at random from his writings simply as an illustration of his annoyance 
with all sorts of dualisms. They are, obviously, by no means mutually exclusive. 


28 Education for Modernization in China 


vital and deep-rooted forces in the environment of American life. 
He does not intentionally and artificially adopt the method of 
harmony as a formal technique, but the habituated mode of liv- 
ing and thinking in an expansive and unobstructed environment 
for the last three hundred years of American life gives him the 
basis of reality for—and the social readiness to accept—his artic- 
ulate formulation of the central significance of American experi- 
ence. The following passage clearly illustrates the need for the 
appropriate kind of environment in order that feeling for con- 
tinuity can become real: “When we find the successful display 
of our energies checked by uncongenial surroundings, natural and 
social, the easiest way out is to build castles in the air and let 
them be a substitute for an actual achievement which involves 
the pains of thought.”’ According to this analysis, uncongenial 
surroundings, natural and social, are chiefly responsible for the 
split in thought into dualisms. This split, as Professor Dewey 
proceeds, “may be more than an incident of particular individual 
experience. The social situation may be such as to throw the 
class given to articulate reflection back into their own thoughts 
and desires without providing the means by which these ideas 
and aspirations can be used to reorganize the environment.” * 
Thus “in the early centuries of the Christian era, the influential 
moral systems of the Stoics, of monastic and popular Christianity 
and other religious movements of the day, took shape under the 
influence of such conditions.” 

In order to avoid the evils of dualisms, proper environment 
must be such that it is possible for the disposition of desire and 
thinking to become an “organic factor in overt and obvious, con- 
duct.” The evils of dualisms “must result whenever individuals, 
whether young or old, cannot engage in a progressively cumu- 
lative undertaking under conditions which engage their interest 
and require their reflection.”” This presupposes an expanding en- 
vironment which supplies, in a progressive manner, challenging 
difficulties for the wholesome unification of thinking and doing, 
and which allows plenty of room for the exertion of individual 
efforts. 


1 Dewey, op. cit., p. 405. 
3 Ibid. 

§ Ibid, 

4 Ibid., p. 407. 

5 Ibid., p. 408. 


Frontier Experience in Modern Educational Approach rae) 


His Educational Ideal. No other modern philosopher has stated so 
explicitly as Professor Dewey the innate unity between philo- 
sophic thinking and educational endeavor. He writes, “If we 
are willing to conceive education as the process of forming fun- | 
damental dispositions, intellectual and emotional, toward nature | 
and fellowmen, philosophy may even be defined as the general theory | 
of education.” Furthermore, he conceives of education as “the lab- | 
oratory in which philosophic distinctions become concrete and 
are tested.” 


The problems that confronted the first stages of his experiment 
in the University of Chicago were stated by himself as follows: 
“The obvious fact is that our social life has undergone a thorough 
and radical change. If our education is to have any meaning for 
life, it must pass through an equally complete transformation.” 
“The change that comes first to mind, the one that overshadows 
and even controls all others, is the industrial one—the applica- 
tion of science resulting in the great inventions that have utilized 
the forces of nature on a vast and inexpensive scale; the growth 
of a world wide market as the object of production, of vast manu- 
facturing centers to supply this market, of cheap and rapid means 
of communication and distribution between all its parts.’”* — 


At the end of the nineteenth century when industrial trans- 
formations were taking place in American life, Professor Dewey 
saw that the essential powers in the men and women who could 
succeed in adapting themselves to the new environment were the 
natural products of the mode of living which we may characterize 
as frontier community-building that had been going on for three 
hundred years previously in America. He also saw that the most 
efficient means to adapt the younger generation successfully to 
cope with the vast problems around them would be the provision 
in the schools of the substitutes for the environmental forces 
which in previous generations of frontier life shaped and made 
possible the characteristics of initiative, keen thinking ability and 
cooperative endeavor. 


The ideal school, therefore, to him was a frontier household 


1 Dewey, op. cit., p. 383. 
/ Ibid, p. 384. 
ven 8 Dewey, John, in School and Society, p. 26. 
* Ibid., p. 5. 


30 Education for Modernization in China 


enlarged and specialized.’ In the following quotation, it will be 
seen how the mode of living in a frontier household is raised to a 
high educational significance. “Those of us who are here to-day 
need go back only one, two, or at most three generations, to find 
a time when the household was practically the center in which 
were carried on, or about which were clustered, all the typical 
forms of industrial occupations. The clothing worn was for the 
most part made in the house; the members of the household were 
usually familiar also with the shearing of the sheep, the carding 
and spinning of the wool, and the plying of the loom. Instead of 
pressing a button and flooding the house with electric light, the 
whole process of getting illumination was followed in its toilsome 
length from the killing of the animal and the trying of fat to the 
making of wicks and dipping of candles. The supply of flour, of 
lumber, of foods, of building materials, of household furniture, 
even of metal ware, of nails, hinges, hammers, etc., was produced 
in the immediate neighborhood, in shops which were constantly 
open to inspection and often centers of neighborhood congrega- 
tion. The entire industrial process stood revealed, from the pro- 
duction on the farm of the raw materials till the finished article 
was actually put to use. Not only this, but practically every mem- 
ber of the household had his own share in the work. The chil- 
dren, as they gained in strength and capacity, were gradually ini- 
tiated into the mysteries of the several processes. It was a mat- 
ter of immediate and personal concern, even to the point of actual 
participation. 

“We cannot overlook the factors of discipline and of character- 
building involved in this kind of life: training in habits of order 
and of industry, and in the idea of responsibility, of obligation to 
do something, to produce something, in the world. There was 
always something which really needed to be done, and a real 
necessity that each member of the household should do his own 
part faithfully and in cooperation with others. Personalities 
which became effective in action were bred and tested in the me- 
dium of action, Again, we cannot overlook the importance for 
educational purposes of the close and intimate acquaintance got 
with nature at first hand, with real things and materials, with the 
actual processes of their manipulation, and the knowledge of 

1 Dewey, John, op. cit., p. 35. 


Frontier Experience in Modern Educational Approach 31 


their social necessities and uses. In all this there was continual 
training of observation, of ingenuity, of constructive imagina- 
tion, of logical thought, and of the sense of reality acquired 
through first-hand contact with actualities. The educative forces 
of the domestic spinning and weaving, of the sawmill, the grist- 
mill, the cooper shop, and the blacksmith forge, were continu- 
ously operative.” * 

The school should be a community in itself and education is 
conceived as life in that community with all its rich opportuni- 
ties for the development of intellect and character, and not as 
preparation for some kind of artificial and formal mode of living 
disconnected with, and unrelated to, the real needs and problems 
of the school environment. 

Reasoning from this basis, it naturally follows that “the sub- 
ject matter of the school curriculum should mark a gradual dif- 
ferentiation out of the primitive unconscious unity of social life,” ’ 
and “the true center of correlation of the school subjects is not 
science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s 
own social activities’, and that “the primary basis of education 
is in the child’s powers at work along the same general construc- 
tive lines as those which have brought civilization into being.” * 
Finally, “education must be conceived as a continuing recon- 
struction of experience; and the process and goal of education are 
one and the same thing.”* In other words, the school should in 
a very true sense be a frontier community in which every mem- 
ber has his active share of responsibility and problem solving, 
and the educative processes thus gone through will best furnish 
the learners with the adequate equipment for adapting them- 
selves to the world outside the school. 


Frontier Commumty-Building Experience in, Education. for Mod- 
ernization. In the education for modernization, we shall need to 
provide educational substitutes in our schools for the transform- 
ing experiences of this stage of modernization. Our youths must 
be given ample and ever-expanding opportunities to challenge 
their attention and wholehearted effort. They must unify their 


1 Dewey, John, op. cit., pp. 6-7. 

2 Dewey, John, My Pedagogic Creed, p. 10. 
3 Ibid., p. 11. 

4 Ibid, 

SIGS Palo. 


32 Education for Modernization in China 


life-efforts by effective action that answers the material demands 
of the environment. It is chiefly from the philosophy of con- 
tinuity that we have drawn the concrete points for emphasis 
under Criteria II and III for curriculum construction in the edu- 
cation for modernization. For example: 

1. Does the school activity promote “open-space” (or demo- 
cratic) social conduct? and 

2. Does the school activity unify life-effort through action? 


These will be discussed in the following chapter. 


CRAVE RV LE 


PROPOSED CRITERIA FOR CURRICULUM CONSTRUC- 
TION IN THE EDUCATION FOR MODERNIZATION 


All discussions on curriculum-making naturally fall into three 
parts: (1) the aim or aims of education, (2) the criteria or prin- 
ciples, guiding the selection and arrangement of the content of 
the curriculum, and (3) the technique for the provision of de- 
tailed matter as it will be used in the schools. 

In the previous chapters of this inquiry, we have endeavored 
to show that the immediate aim of Chinese education during the 
period of transition is modernization—not primarily the learning 
of products already formulated, but rather the experiencing of a 
process which we hope will produce actively modern men and 
women, capable of creating new solutions for meeting the prob- 
lems of China in her adjustment to the modern world; and that 
the chief conditioning circumstance in the modernization of the 
western nations has been the extensive process of modern ex- 
pansion, and that characteristics of modern culture are traceable 
to this influence. 

It will be the aim of this chapter to propose certain criteria for 
guidance in the construction of an effective content in the edu- 
cation for modernization. Following the thesis of this inquiry, it 
is but natural that we should derive our criteria by an analysis 
of the characteristics of the different aspects of modern expan- 
sion. The criteria thus derived should be of service as a sort of 
measuring tape to judge whether a certain school activity, or any 
detailed part thereof, is desirable and effective. They will help 
in evaluating present-day practice as well as initiating new 
proposals, as we shall see in the following chapters. They are 
stated in question form in order to facilitate application. 

They are general enough to apply to all grades, but the special! 
field we have in view is the Middle School, which will supply us 
with the concrete matter for discussion. 

By “school activity” is meant classroom study, field Sten 


34 Education for Modernization in China 


student organization work, or any kind of exercise going on 
among the students in the school community. 


THE PROPOSED CRITERIA 


CRITERION I. Does the School Activity Encourage the Extension of 
Environmental Contacts (Both Physical and Social) ? 


1. Does the school provide opportunities to foster the desire to explore, to 
go away from crowded and familiar surroundings, to travel near and 
far for varied sense-stimuli and for the enlargement of social under- 
standing ? 

2. Does the school activity contribute to physical vitality and stimulate the 
desire to make use of the same? 


3. Does the school activity encourage habits of making comparisons, of set- 
ting up hypotheses, of verifying them by further search of facts—in 
general, the habits of alert sizing up of, and ready adaptation to, new 
situations f 


4. Does the school activity contribute to the organizing skill and knowledge 


needed for self-directed enterprises in the extension of physical and 
social contacts? 


CRITERION II. Does the School Activity Promote “Open-Space”’ 
(or Democratic) Social Conduct ? 
1. Does the school activity promote the ideals, skills and knowledges for 
cooperative endeavor on the basis of equal opportunity for all to 
participate? 


i. 


Does the school activity promote the active qualities of individuality, in- 
dependence in judgment and in action amidst the conformity required 
by a “closed-space” long-settled community? 


CriTERION III. Does the School Activity Unify Life-Efforts 
through Action? 

1. Does the school activity center around things to do, that is, the making 
of material changes in the environment or the achieving of other kinds 
of objective ends? 

2. Do the products of such doing possess appeals of immediate usefulness 
to the doers themselves? 


3. Does the manner of doing encourage the creation of methods by the doers? 


4. Does the organization for doing encourage cooperative endeavor, adjusting 
individual talents to proper tasks? 


CriTERION IV. Does the School Activity Contribute to Abilities 
Needed in Scientific Producing and Organizing? 
1. Does the school activity contribute to the development of executive ability 
and organizing leadership in industrial, political, social and cultural 
organizations ? 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 35 


2. Does the school activity train the scientific attitude and technique for the 
mastering of situations and problems? 


3. Does the school provide for opportunities of experience in real vocations 
in order to gain concreteness of experience and to guide in the choice 
of life-vocation? 


4. Does the school activity serve as a fundamental and necessary tool in 
vocations in which the student will engage such as certain linguistic 
habits, certain social observances, certain processes in quantitative meth- 
ods, certain principles in organized knowledge, and the like? 


CRITERION V. Does the School Activity Promote the Ideals and Habits 
for the “Humanization” of the Aims and Processes of Modern 
Life and Organization? 


1. Does the school activity preserve and readapt the ideals and habits of 
humanism in the old culture? 


2. Does the school activity allow and encourage the searching for “human” 
values in the products and processes of modern culture? 


EXPOSITION OF THE CRITERIA 


CRITERION I. DorEs THE SCHOOL ACTIVITY ENCOURAGE THE EXTEN- 
SION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTACTS? 


1. Does the school provide opportunities to foster the desire to ex- 
plore, to go away from crowded and familiar surroundings, to 
travel near and far for varied sense-stimuli and for the enlarge- 
ment of social understanding ? 


Of all possible advice to the youths of China to help them realize 
their aspiration to acquire modern outlook and modern powers, that 
which seems least in danger of contradiction and incapable of over- 
emphasis is never to remain tame and comfortable within the poisoned 
indoors of the crowded decadence of man. They should be inspired 
at the present era with a love of open space and of the beckoning 
wonders of nature. The reactions coming to the youth from a broad 
extension of environmental contacts will work for most healthy atti- 
tudes and objectives such as we cannot possibly secure in any other 
way for the purpose of modernization. All things modern should be 
approached “from the point of view of the explorer and the discoverer. 
It is only thus that youth can feel the real urgent demand for the 
creation of a new civilization. This is indeed the authentic call of the 
modern spirit. 

That long-settled conditions and continued living in the midst of a 


36 Education for Modernization in China 


dense population largely account for the conservatism of the Chinese 
has often been noticed by discerning observers from abroad Professor 
Dewey writes:* “It is beyond question that many traits of the 
Chinese mind are the products of an extraordinary and long con- 
tined density of populations.”’ And he continues, “I wonder whether 
even the Anglo-Saxons would have developed or retained initiative if 
they had lived for centuries under conditions that gave them no room 
to stir about, no relief from the unremitting surveillance of their 
fellows.”’ On account of that lack of freshness and open-space in 
the environment, “innovation, experimentation, get automatically dis- 
couraged, not from lack of intelligence, but because intelligence is 
too keenly aware of the mistakes that may result, the trouble that 
may arise.” 

One of the first and most legitimate functions of the school is to 
provide opportunities by means of which the prison walls of the 
students’ intellectual, physical and social life can be pushed back and 
broken down. Without going through this preliminary process, it is 
our belief that no amount of slavish acquiring of modern products 
can make a Chinese youth modern. 

Now as to what kind of excursions and travels can best be em- 
ployed, this requires a detailed survey of all devices existing in China 
and elsewhere, or the creation of others according to immediate needs. 
Those who are familiar with the technique and recent success of the 
Boy Scout Movement in America and England may wonder whether 
that movement cannot supply us with some valuable suggestions in 
spirit and in working tools. Consequently we shall devote the next 
few paragraphs to an analysis of how the Boy Scout Movement has 
been introduced into China in the last few years, and what suggestions 
that movement rightly understood can supply us, not as mere extra- 
curricular activity, but for regular school procedure. 

At the present time the Boy Scout Movement, although formally 
organized as a national organization and officially recognized by the 
Ministry of Education in 1919, is still a foreign non-indigenous plant 
that has not taken very deep roots in the Chinese soil. Some schools 
in large centers, such as Shanghai, Tientsin, Canton, etc.,*have organ- 
ized scout troops according to prescribed rules, but the formality has 
been binding and we cannot say that the spirit has been adequately 


appreciated. Here again, we are afraid, is an instance where the 
‘Dewey, John, ‘‘What Holds China Back,” Asia Magazine, May 1920. 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 37 


emphasis is misplaced on the learning of certain formulated modern 
products and not on the experiencing of a vital modern process. A 
few illustrations will show this point clearly. 

The Scout Law. Every boy scout has to make a promise or take an 
oath to do his best to carry out the Scout Law. The English and the 
American versions are somewhat different in form, and the Chinese 
version is a translation of the American with certain modifications. 
The summarized topics of the laws are as follows: 


ENGLISH AMERICAN CHINESE * 
1. A scout’s honor is to be 1.A scout is trust- 1. Honesty. 
trusted. worthy. 
2. A scout is loyal. 2. A scout is loyal. 2. Loyalty. 
3. A scout’s duty is to be 3. A scout is helpful. 3. Helpfulness. 
useful and to help 
others. 
4. A scout is a friend to all 4. A scout is friend- 4. Love. 
and a brother to every ly. 
other scout no matter 
in what social class the 
other belongs. 
5. A scout is courteous. 5. A scout is courte- 5. Etiquette. 
ous. 
6. A scout is a friend to 6. A scout is kind. 6. Love things. 
animals. 
7. A scout obeys orders. 7. A scout is obedient. 7. Obedience. 
8. A scout smiles and whis- 8 A scout is cheer-  g, Happiness. 
tles under all difficul- ful. 
ties. 
9. A scout is thrifty. 9. A scout is thrifty. 9. Economy. 
10. A scout is clean in 10. A scout is brave. 10. Courage. 
thought, word and 
deed. 
11. A scout is clean. tie Glasniinece: 
12. A scout is rev- ..12. Public virtue. 


erent. 


It is interesting to note how in the American version all the laws 
are “standardized” and in the Chinese they are literally “formalized,” 
each group showing its own national characteristic! In China there 
are already too many formal virtues to bind the youths. To borrow 
this part of the Scout Movement, namely the emphasis on obedience 
to law, seems to be emphasizing the wrong thing at the wrong 


Taken from ‘‘Lectures on Scouting,’”’ published by Kiangsu Provincial Education Asso- 
ciation, 1928. 


38 Education for Modernization in China 


moment. The real contribution and spirit of the Movement are indi- 
cated in the words of its originator, Baden-Powell: ‘Scoutcraft 
includes the qualities of our frontier colonists, such as resourceful- 
ness, endurance, pluck, trustworthiness, plus the chivalry of the 
Knights.” Again, “with a view to making the subject appeal to boys 
and to meet their spirit in adventure, I held up for their ideal the 
doings of backwoodsmen and Knights, adventurers, and explorers as 
the heroes for them to follow.” * Here we see the ideal is to make the 
boy follow the footsteps of those “who live face to face with nature 
and have to do things for themselves.” Consequently all the wood- 
craft, campcraft, first aid, tracking, “hiking,” and other things in the 
program are dominated by the ideals and habits of the frontiersman 
and of the explorer. 

In this connection it may be pointed out how out-of-door life is 
inadequately appreciated by the translators of the requirements for 
the Chinese movement. For the “Second Class Requirements” in the 
American movement, a scout must, among other things, “track half 
a mile in 25 minutes; or if in town, describe satisfactorily the con- 
tents of one store window out of four observed for one minute each.” 
But the Handbook for Scout Masters cautions that “the window 
observation test is a substitute which should be used only when cir- 
cumstances absolutely preclude the tracking test,’ * because it recog- 
nizes that “a sharpening of the eye and a quickening of the wits— 
observation, concentration, and deduction are demanded by track- 
ing and its allied games.” * The Chinese equivalent says, ‘“‘Practice in 
observation and memory. He should satisfy one of three conditions 
(1) the window test (same as above), (2) after one minute’s observa- 
tion, remember 16 out of 24 things, (3) visit a factory or a place of 
historical interest and make a careful report.’ We can see here that 
all the alertness of the frontiersman is lost sight of in all three of 
these conditions. 

Again, one of the requirements for the “first class” in the Ameri- 
can Movement is “Make a round trip alone (or with another scout) 
to a point at least seven miles away, going on foot or rowing boat, 
and write a satisfactory account of the trip and the things observed.” 
It is especially specified, “This trip should not be made along city 

1 Handbook for Scout Masters, p. 478, Boy Scouts of America, 1920. 


2 Ibid., p. 165. 
3 Tbid., p. 92. 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 39 


streets or automobile roads. The route should follow small country 
roads and at least a part of the hike should be across country through 
fields and woods.” The Chinese equivalent says, “Travel alone or 
with a friend on foot or by boat over 20 li’s (about 7 miles) ; if 
riding on horseback, 40 li’s. Report condition of the trip.” The dis- 
tance is shortened, but that is a minor matter. The chief important 
difference is in the making use of boats and horseback-riding which 
will not demand the same amount of resourcefulness as travelling 
through fields and woods, making one’s own path as one goes along. 

The Scout Movement as a movement, especially with its formalized 
and sometimes sentimental and unintelligent details—unintelligent to 
the Chinese who cannot read the literature in the original—will not, 
unless greatly modified, have a more than limited significance in 
China. But from the spirit and the technique of the movement we 
may learn something for the education of youth of the secondary 
period with the end in view of extending their physical and social 
contacts. To sum up, suggestions may be drawn from the following 
points : 

1. The kinds and functions of excursions. Excursions may con- 
sist of the following activities: (a) nature study, which includes 
observation, specimen collecting, note-taking, comparison, and the 
generalization of scientific laws; (b) adventure and exploration, 
using the surprises that come from the meeting of new situations as 
stimuli for the exercise of resourcefulness, self-control, and intelli- 
gent and alert adaptation; (c) visitation of industrial and educational 
institutions such as factories, museums, schools, commercial houses, 
docks, yards, etc. 

2. The teaching of responsibility by trust. When boys are trusted 
“on their honor,” they become their own disciplinarians. 

3. The small unit of organization, the so-called “patrol” system. 
Organization is in small units in order that personal knowledge may 
not be lost between the leaders and the men. In cooperating in such 
small groups, boys learn to lead, and learn to choose whom to follow. 
It suggests a method for training “character’’ which has been recog- 
nized by the originator of the movement as being its greatest 
contribution. 

4. The “individual system” in the achieving of definitely set units 
of objectives. One boy may become a “first-class” scout in three 
months by passing satisfactorily all the requirements as stated, while 


40 Education for Modernization in China 


it may take another boy a year or more according to his native ability. 
By allowing free individual advancement, the mediocrity of the mass 
is not forced upon the specially talented. 

Some of these devices may profitably be made use of in the modern 
secondary school in China. 


2. Does the school activity contribute to physical vitality and stimu- 
late the desire to make use of the same? 


The neglect of physical development is proverbial among Chinese 
scholars. But in recent years we see already the rising of a new gen- 
eration that feels keenly the need for a strong body. Athletics and 
sports are being introduced from abroad, and old forms of exercise 
such as boxing, archery, sword playing, etc., are being revived and are 
receiving popular recognition. School athletic meets, district, pro- 
vincial and national meets, encourage the young athletes to exert their 
best in physical development. One stimulus is found in the Far East- 
ern Olympics that have been held for the Far Eastern countries once 
every two years since 1913. 

1913 in Manila 1919 in Manila 
1915 in Shanghai 1921 in Shanghai 
1917 in Tokio 

To counteract the emphasis on individual proficiency, certain 
schools have taken the lead in promoting group activities. Such work, 
however, still needs much promotion and systematic guidance. On the 
whole, physical vitality has not been stressed enough, and school 
studies, as they are organized to-day, chain the students to their 
desks for altogether too many hours of their waking existence. Espe- 
cially during the first two or three years of the secondary school 
period, much emphasis needs to be put on training for vitality, not 
only for a few but for all. And such training should best be effected 
through outdoor exertions by means of sports and exercises in which 
the students can participate without any feeling of formality or self- 
consciousness. 

3. Does the school activity encourage habits of making comparisons, 
of setting up hypotheses, of verifying them by further search of 
facts—in general, the habits of alert sizing up of, and ready adap- 
tation to, new situations? 


Dr. Charles W. Eliot, in considering the changes needed in 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 41 


American secondary education, pointed out: “Unfortunately schools 

do not drill children in seeing and hearing correctly, in 
touching deftly and rapidly, and in drawing the right inferences from 
the testimony of their senses.” ’ The regret should be the more deeply 
felt in regard to Chinese schools. Sense-training and reliance on 
objective evidences have been altogether neglected. Consequently, 
the habits of thought are apt to permit vagueness and inaccuracy, and 
a lack of the direct, measured and testing-by-result quality which the 
modern world calls scientific. 

In connection with excursions and other opportunities for the 
extension of environmental contacts, definite training should be given 
in taking notes, making comparisons, setting up hypotheses, search- 
ing evidences for proof, and checking up by concrete application in 
actual use. Such habits, if consciously entertained, should contribute 
to the type of mind that is needed so much to-day. The schools should 
give the student an all-round bodily vigour, a nervous system capable 
of coordinated efforts, a widely applicable skill of ear, eye, and hands, 
and a training in thinking that guid@s him in sensing the significant 
elements in a problem, in selecting the relevant facts, in forming the 
fruitful hypotheses, and in checking all inferences by objective use. 
Such should be the function and ideal of the modern school. 


4, Does the school activity contribute to the organizing skill and 
knowledge needed for self-directed enterprises in the extension 
of physical and social contacts? 


In the meeting of new situations, naturally no set rules can be cer- 
tain of answering the ever-changing circumstances of the situation. 
Consequently, adventurers and explorers cannot afford to follow set 
rules and trust to the constant presence of their leaders. The exi- 
gencies of their situation naturally force upon them the necessity of 
being able to organize among themselves independent of any set 
rules and any definite leaders. In fact, it is through the meeting of 
such exigencies that the natural leaders have been found and made. 
In a long-settled community, men often make use of advantages and 
values created by society in order to advance to leadership. Such 
values and such advantages are often unjust, and when the society 
is going through a violent transition, they are often obstructive. 
Under the present circumstances, there is needed a leadership with 


1 Eliot, C. W., Changes Needed in American Secondary Education, p. 9. 


42 Education for Modernization in China 


new qualities—qualities such as exploration and the meeting of new 
situations will demand and create. If the school can provide oppor- 
tunities for new experiences of the free type, natural leaders with the 
necessary qualifications will emerge. And a new kind of readjust- 
ment in human relationship and organization will eventually be 
crystallized. 

Further treatment of the objectives and technique of student self- 
organization will be found in connection with the Criterion II. 


CRITERION II. Dors THE ScHOOL ACTIVITY PROMOTE ““OPEN-SPACE” 
(or Democratic) SociaL ConpuctT? 


1. Does the school activity promote the ideals, skills, and knowledge 
for cooperative endeavor on the basis of equal opportunity for all 
to participate? 


Cooperative endeavor on the basis of equal opportunity for all to 
participate is an ideal made conscious in all democratic communities. 
With such an ideal it becomes possible to draw out the best efforts of 
every individual. In the workings of the democratic machinery, there 
are apt to be instances of temporary confusion and perhaps insubor- 
dination—both of which may produce irritating ineffectiveness—but 
in the end a society with such a basis has far more potential strength 
to put forth in face of emergencies and great opportunities. 

At least in the schools—if it could not be possible for society at 
large—cooperative endeavor should be organized on the basis of 
equality of opportunity. Thus and only thus can the varied talents of 
the students emerge from obscurity through the possibility of exer- 
cise, and be tested in the midst of real reactions in a social medium. 

We have called such social conduct “open-space” because it pre- 
supposes the presence of challenging opportunities ahead and around 
the individuals concerned, so that they all can feel their interests 
drawn out by the opportunities which leave them little energy or time 
for social discrimination and any possible tendencies toward such 
social vices as mutual jealousy and destructiveness. In order that the 
school may be successful in practising the ideal of equality of par- 
ticipation, ample and varied opportunities must be provided so that 
the students will all feel an “open-spaceness” toward themselves and 
toward one another—toward themselves hopefulness of future 
achievement, and toward others tolerance and mutual helpfulness in 
attaining one another’s goals. 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 43 


Thus the school cannot and should not run on the basis of tradi- 
tional studies alone. It must have opportunities upon opportunities, 
activities and ever-increasing activities, for the students to try their 
talents in. This is the secret of morale of the best disciplined com- 
munities as well as of the best disciplined schools to-day. To illus- 
trate our point, let us take the student activities in one school and 
see how they have helped in contributing to the morale of that school. 
I refer to the organization called the Council of Extra-Curricular 
Activities of Nankai School, Tientsin. This council is made up of 
representatives of all the organized activities of the school as follows: 


The organizations (two representatives from each class) : 
Self-Culture and Study Society. 
Social Activities Society. 
Society for the Support of Poor People’s Schools. 
The Religious Association. 
The School Publications. 
The School Band. 
The Glee Club. 
The Chinese Musical Society. 
The Athletic Association. 


Each organization has two representatives on the council. The 
council meets at stated times for the discussion of all school matters 
outside of classroom studies. They sit together as a deliberative body 
and delegate the executive power to a board of nine. It is not so 
important how they organize so long as there are diverse activities in 
the school. The students are habituated to parliamentary procedure, 
the choosing and following of leaders, and decisions on policies. 
Furthermore, they are always on the look-out for the expression of 
their activities in new channels. Thus, whenever there is a new 
channel arising either within the school, such as-interest in a certain 
subject of study, or outside of the school, such as taking care of the 
famine sufferers and giving their support to the expression of public 
opinion in regard to national issues, immediately those who are espe- 
cially interested would follow the natural procedure of action by 
orderly means and find support in the morale of the whole school. 

Student activities are gradually being allowed and encouraged in 
the secondary institutions of the country. Especially since 1919, when 
the students did their great patriotic service in the historic Student 


44 Education for Modernization in China 


Movement which is known as the “Fourth of May Movement,” stu- 
dent self-government has been acquiring more and more attention. 
It is true that the morale in many schools is far from being satis- 
factory, but the facts seem to show that the responsibility should fall 
on the teachers and the administrators for not providing more oppor- 
tunities and activities for the students to exert themselves in. There 
is no better way, furthermore, to develop civic responsibility than 
active participation within the schools. 


2. Does the school activity promote the active qualities of individu- 
ality, independence in judgment and in action amidst the conform- 
ity required by a “closed-space”’ long-settled community? 


The predominating atmosphere of the school should be that of the 
pioneer community in its cooperative effort as well as in its individual 
responsibility and freedom. It is a matter of common observation 
that there is the need to cultivate the ability to cooperate, especially 
among the leaders. This has been made very clear by deficiencies in 
the “‘closed-space” type of social competition. But while social order 
and control are being stressed, due weight should be given to the 
development of independent individuality. In China at the present 
stage of transition, there should be a shaking loose from too tight a 
traditional social bondage in order to give the individual the important 
place in a modernized community. 

Crowd-mindedness is often the fault of too eager a desire to secure 
popular approval or immediate success. Especially during such times 
of transition, much of the ultimate effectiveness will depend upon 
those who can stand most alone. 

Yet, as Professor Thorndike * has warned us, “Effective independ- 
ence, initiative and originality are not the negations of dependence, 
imitation, and fixed habits, but are the continued organization upon a 
new and higher level.” With his scientific insight, he suggests a new 
interpretation of some of the active virtues of individuality. He 
writes, “Finally will it not clear the whole argument somewhat if, 
in our thinking about education, we replace the word, self-reliance, 
by reliance on facts, self-direction by rational direction, initiative by 
readiness and ability to begin to think and experiment, independence 
by readiness to carry thought or experiment on to its just conclusions 


1 Thorndike, E. L., ‘‘Educatieon for Initiative and Originality,” Teachers College Record, 
Nov. 1916, pp. 405-416. 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 45 


despite traditions and custom and lack of company; and if we add to 
the company of these active virtues an impersonal, objective habit 
that scorns hopes and fears and neglects self-interest, cherishing only 
the naked facts of life and the zeal to control them for the common 
good?” 

This pregnant and wise passage should be sufficient to allay the 
timid fears of those who are too ready to identify true independence 
and shortsighted self-interest. In fact, self-interest is never inde- 
pendent. 

Those who are responsible for directing the life of the school 
community should jealously watch lest the demands for codperative 
efforts may become so immediately intense as to impose upon the 
student body a mechanical uniformity and a deadening mob rule. 


CRITERION III. Dors THE ScHooLt Activity Uniry Lire-Errorts 
TuHrouGH ACTION? 


1. Does the school activity center around things to do, that is, the 
making of material changes in the environment or the achieving 
of other kinds of objective ends? 


An old long-settled community has always had the tendency to 
neglect action, that is, the effecting of material changes in the object- 
ive environment. The students in China in the past sadly neglected 
the unification of their life-efforts through healthy exertion in causing 
some objectively noticeable changes in concrete things. In the reno- 
vation of China’s social life and institutions, action—to “do” things 
—should be recognized as one of the most effective keys to the 
problem. 

In recent years students have been influenced by the so-called 
Literary Revolution; they are acquiring the tools of the critical think- 
ers of the modern world. Much good has been done in changing the 
point of view of the thinking class. But the method of attack is 
literary; that is, by means of symbolistic control. The writers of the 
new style are still found to be those accustomed to the old style. The 
new movement has borrowed the modern logical tool and has re- 
formed the technique of thinking for a small group. Whatever has 
been achieved thus far should be consolidated and recognized by 
educators of the younger generation, but there is yet another need 
deeper and more fundamental than changes in the tricks of thinking. 


46 Education for Modernization in China 


The new generation must be built on a new physical basis. They must 
learn to use their brains, their senses and their muscles to effect 
objective changes in the world around them. They must become doers 
of deeds and not merely thinkers of ideas. It is only by this path that 
the youths can become real masters in a truly and healthily modern 
way. In carrying things into effect, three factors are naturally in- 
volved: (1) the end in view or the objective of the endeavor, (2) the 
manner of carrying out the purpose, and (3) the medium in which 
the purpose will be wrought into a deed. 


2. Do the products of such doing possess appeals of tmmediate use- 
fulness to the doers themselves? 


As to the objective of doing, we believe that it must possess appeals 
of immediate usefulness to the doers themselves. They must feel the 
need and the desire to do something about it. Such needs may be of 
the school community, of the social neighborhood, of vocational worth 
to the individual, or of national worth to the large group. Activities 
built around these needs may consist of such things as the making of 
school utensils, the carrying on of relief work among the famine 
sufferers, the taking part in an electric plant, or the survey of a city 
or province with the idea of suggesting concrete measures for social 
reconstruction. The school should adequately provide things to do, an 
educational setting, so that through the doing many tools may be 
acquired for future and more extended use. 


3. Does the manner of doing encourage the creation of methods by 
the doers? 


As to the manner of doing, methods should be worked out by the 
doers to answer the special needs of the situation. This procedure 
undoubtedly will prove slow and often confusing in the first stages 
of a student’s immature practice. But in the end they will develop 
the habit of resourcefulness and discrimination which they could 
not otherwise learn if they were never allowed to use their own free- 
dom of experimentation. Known tools, however, as worked out 
through experience and found effective in meeting standardized pro- 
blems, are by no means neglected. Only they are not to be handed 
out to the students before they have been forced into a creative act 
of providing their own solutions to the problems before them. After 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 47 


they go through that process, they will appreciate far more a tool 
worked out by those more capable than they, when that tool or 
method solves the problem more effectively than their own. 


4. Does the organization for doing encourage cooperative endeavor, 
adjusting individual talents to proper tasks? 


The carrying out of a purpose into an achievement is done in 
a social medium, that is, in company with other workers whose 
presence cannot be ignored. Since modern endeavors are be- 
coming more and more complex so that individuals have to learn 
to fit themselves into their proper and rightful places in an or- 
ganized whole, the school surely should take upon itself the re- 
sponsibility for training for this type of adjusted cooperation. 
Each one is encouraged to find out what he can do best and at 
the same time each one should know his exact place in certain of 
the major activities of life where he can render the best service 
to the group. To reach such an ideal adjustment, much experi- 
mentation is needed, and the school surely should provide oppor- 
tunities for free experimentation as well as wise guidance to lead 
the youth into fruitful and adjusted channels of exertion. 


CRITERION IV. DoEs THE SCHOOL ACTIVITY CONTRIBUTE TO ABILI- 
TIES NEEDED IN SCIENTIFIC PRODUCING AND ORGANIZING ? 


The Development of China’s Resources. The development of the 
natural resources of China by means of modern industrial tools is 
a vital need acknowledged by all. China to-day has perhaps the 
largest undeveloped fields of natural resources known to the 
modern world. The development of the natural wealth of China 
is inevitable and is bound to be the most important event in the 
history of the world in the next thirty years. The crucial question 
for us is who should do the developing. Consequently it becomes 
the foremost task of education during the transition period to 
furnish men who can manage and organize and carry on the tech- 
nical processes of this most immediate and effective form of ma- 
terial expansion. 

Industrial transformation is the most effective means of ex- 
tending the environment to relieve the over-crowded condition 
that has been surrounding us. Thus Professor Dewey writes: 


48 Education for Modernization in China 


“An introduction of modern industrial methods is the only thing 
that will profoundly affect the environment. Utilizing energy 
and resources now untouched will produce an effect that will be 
the same as an enlargement of the environment. Mining, rail- 
ways, and manufacturing based upon China’s wealth of unused 
resources will give a new outlet for energies that now cannot be 
used without the risk of causing ‘trouble.’ The impersonal and 
indirect effects of modern production and commerce will create 
habits that will lessen the importance of appearances and ‘face,’ 
and increase the importance of objective consequences of facts.” * 


And Dr. Monroe recently gave at Peking a serious warning to 
the educators that “as long as China is not able to produce men 
who will apply modern scientific results and methods in the de- 
velopment of her resources, that development will be in the hands 
of foreigners—and China will not be independent.’ 


Furthermore, the problem of unemployment is becoming more 
and more acute. Thus, a recent article in Education and Voca- 
tion’ pointed out that the large number of the undifferentiated 
office-seekers forms an undisputed factor in temptations to cor- 
ruption in political circles; and in the industrial and commercial 
world, those who are looking for positions are so many more than 
the positions available that unfair means are often resorted to, 
in order to eke out a bare subsistence. To solve this problem of 
unemployment, opportunities must be provided for the use of 
large numbers of men in new enterprises. Nothing can be accom- 
plished by expostulation and exhortation. A change of condi- 
tions and of the environment is absolutely needed. 


This change involves not only the industries, but also the social 
and political structure. Consequently leaders must be trained not 
in the industrial field alone, but also in the social, political and 
cultural fields, and that is a reason why we stated in our criterion 
“Scientific Producing and Organizing.” 


In order to see clearly the task of education, the various fields 
where modern leadership is urgently called for are briefly classi- 
fied as follows: 

1 Dewey, John, ““What Holds China Back,” Asia Magazine, May 1920. 


2 Interview reported in the Peking Leader, Dec, 28, 1921. 
3 Vol. 111, No. 5, Oct. 1921. 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 49 


I. INDUSTRIAL 


1, Extractive (the production of raw materials), 
a. Agriculture and forestry. 
b. Mining. 
c. Fisheries. 


2. Manufacturing. 
a. Engineering processes. 
b. Management processes. 


3. Commercial (the enterprises for the exchange of raw and manu- 
factured products). 
a. Transportation and communication. 
b. Import and export. 
c. Retail distribution. 


II. Soctar 
1. Political organization and methods (including governmental func- 
tions in various fields). 
2. Education for the training of new leaders and a new populace. 


3. The new field of journalism. 


4. Leaders in social-service professions, such as medicine, social work, 
and the like. 


III. CuLtTura 
The re-direction of literature, philosophy, and fine arts according to the 
new needs and new tastes. 


Now let us see how these needs will be met by Criterion IV. 


1, Does the school activity contribute to the development of execu- 
tive ability and organizing leadership in industrial, political, social 
and cultural organizations? 


The type of executive depends upon the needs and conditions 
of the tasks. But what should be regarded as the basis of execu- 
tive ability? One author answers in the following manner: “Its 
ultimate source is energy. In withstanding adverse pressure, do- 
ing large amounts of work, and overflowing the usual, success is 
linked up with energy.”* Executive ability is a complex phenom- 
enon. It is based naturally on natural endowment, but the en- 
dowment can be stimulated by the proper kind of environment 
and guidance. What are some of the important factors that will 
permit and facilitate the expression of the natural equipment for 
leadership? 


1 Gowin, E. B., The Executive, p. 14. 


50 Education for Modernization in China 


1. There should be unusual incentives offered by the environment. 
It may be in the form of social approval, authority, or the more 
material objectives. Does the environment supply opportunities 
for the challenging of extraordinary endeavor? Are those oppor- 
tunities visualized to such an extent that they can lead men on to at- 
tempt the seemingly impossible? The welfare of the many de- 
pends upon the achievements of the few and a supply of effective 
leadership depends upon the demand for their services. 

2. There should be toleration and encouragement of intensity of 
conviction in strong individuals. Walter Bagehot wrote: “A hot flash 
seems to burn across the brain. Men in these intense states of 
mind have altered all history, changed for better or worse the 
creed of myriads, and desolated or redeemed provinces or ages. 

We should utilize this intense emotion of conviction as 
far as we can. Dry minds, which give an intellectual ‘assent’ to 
conclusions, which feel no strong glow or faith in them, often do 
not know what opinions are; they have every day to go over the 
arguments again, or to refer to a notebook to know what they 
believe, but intense convictions make a memory for themselves, 
and if they can be kept to the truths of which there is good evi- 
dence, they give a readiness in intellect, a confidence in action, a 
consistency in character, which are not to be had without them.” ’* 

The society in which the individuals live—in our discussion it 
is the school community—should allow and encourage the ex- 
pression and the building up of intense convictions. No strong 
men can ever be called forth if a conformity surrounding them 
binds them over much. 

3. There should be also a general faith in achievement, or in other 
words, a certain hopefulness in facing the future. Naturally the 
one who leads should be in advance of the group, yet he can de- 
velop best and be of most productive service in an environment 
that has faith in the future. An ardent, confident, onward-looking 
atmosphere can stimulate a variety of abilities in the different 
fields where leadership is needed. The schools therefore should 
strive to build up such an atmosphere. 

We have indicated a few of the more important factors that can 
help to stimulate executive ability. Within the school walls, par- 
ticipation in organization and management should be encouraged 

1 Bagehot, Walter, Religious and Metaphysical Essays, Vol. 11, pp. 326 and 338, / 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 51 


so that leadership will naturally reveal itself. We have already 
discussed under Criterion II this phase of the problem. 


2. Does the school activity train the scientific attitude and technique 
in the mastering of situations and problems? 


The most important element in scientific attitude is the funda- 
mental problem-solving set of mind. Professor Dewey’s analysis 
of “How We Think”®* should be consulted at this point. The 
school community and all the activities carried on therein should 
provide situations for the development of problem-solving atti- 
tudes and skills. Continuous opportunity for problem-solving is 
the most essential sime qua non in the development of scientific 
mastery. This is fundamental in developing abilities to analyze a 
problem, to compare the various possible methods of solution, to 
test critically the hypotheses suggested by the problem, to gen- 
eralize the conclusions and to know where they can best be ap- 
plied. The problem-solving ability is what distinguishes the 
executive, the organizer, the creative thinker from the habit- 
bound automatic routine worker in all fields of endeavor. 


3. Does the school provide opportunities of experience in real voca- 
tions in order to gain concreteness of experience and to guide in 
the choice of life-vocations? 


An article in Education and Vocation for October 1921 gave several 
reasons why the modern school products are often unwelcome 
to the commercial and industrial world in China to-day. The rea- 
sons are very instructive and are summarized as follows: 

1. They do not like to perform minor duties. 

2. Their theory is vague, but practice not sufficient. 

3. They are lazy, depending upon cleverness, not willing to 

obey orders. ) 

4, They complain against conditions of living. 

5. They easily shift from one vocation to another. 

6. They do not cooperate well with co-workers. 

7. Their physical strength is not sufficient to endure hard- 

ships. 

8. They easily fall into habits of extravagance, as smoking, 

good clothes, etc. 

1 Dewey, How We Think, Chapter v1. 


a Education for Modernization in China 


Fundamentally it seems that the chief cause for all these com- 
plaints can be found in the fact that students in schools are given 
too little opportunity to have any concrete contacts with real 
vocational conditions. The principle is stated by Bobbitt, “With- 
out actual work in an atmosphere of work, with the spirit of work 
alive within the participants, they do not sufficiently enter into 
work experience. Their activities may have a commendable 
width and variety, but will be lacking in depth.” And, “There is 
nothing like responsibility for giving eyes to an individual; and 
especially eyes for values and relations. It is of immeasurably 
greater value for a boy to work for a season on a farm or in 
a store than it is merely to visit idly about the place.” * 

This fundamental fact has led Walter Rathenau, the German 
economist and statesman, to recommend what he calls the Inter- 
change of Labor. He believes in it so much that he writes: “The 
way to the German mission, to German culture, which is to be no 
more a culture of the classes but of the people, stands open to all 
by means of the Interchange of Labor. . . . The manual 
worker is no longer kept down by over-fatigue, and the brain 
worker is no longer cut off from the rest of the people.’’” 

The Chinese scholar has been habitually out of contact with 
material manipulations. In the education of the new leadership, 
proper emphasis should be given to concrete knowledge of the 
vocational world by actual participation. Work that definitely 
involves a sense of responsibility should be required on farms, in 
factories, in mines or in offices. Without this training the faults 
pointed out by the employers of the products of the modern 
schools are apt to remain without any effective remedy. 


4, Does the school activity serve as a fundamental and necessary tool 
in vocations in which the student will engage, such as certain lin- 
guistic habits, certain social observances, certain processes of 
quantitative methods, certain principles in organized knowledge, 
and the like? 


The proposition as stated is an obvious fact. It only requires 
careful survey and analysis of the actual conditions in the various 
vocations to determine what the fundamental and necessary tools 


1 Bobbitt, F., The Curriculum, pp. 104 and 106. 
1 Rathenau, Walter, The New Society, p. 127, 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction x0 


in each of them are. We can only say in general that the number 
of such tools will be far smaller than most of the school men 
think to-day. Many subjects and parts of subjects, which are 
taught to-day as practical subjects, even such things as commer- 
cial accounting, not to mention mathematics and the sciences, 
will be found upon concrete analysis to contain much “dead” ma- 
terial unrelated to real use. These surveys should be carried on 
with careful observation and analysis of varieties of experiences. 
The quantitative technique as used by the “scientific” curriculuin 
constructors should prove extremely serviceable. 


CRITERION V. Dogs THE SCHOOL ACTIVITY PROMOTE THE IDEALS 
AND HABITS FOR THE ‘“HUMANIZATION” OF THE AIMS 
AND Processes OF MopDERN LIFE AND ORGANIZATION ? 


1. Does the school activity preserve and readapt ideals and habits of 
humanism in old culture? 


This proposition is easy to state but difficult to define. What 
is to be included in the humanism in old culture? What are the 
concepts and institutions that will be preserved? How will they 
be readapted to a China under modern circumstances? 

Various answers to these questions are being proposed in cur- 
rent publications. They are being investigated by scholars,’ as 
well as being disputed by garrulous producers of journalistic 
jumble. It is not within the province of the curriculum maker to 
go far afield in historical research. And while discussion is still 
in the molten stage, he can but follow the best judgment of re- 
liable men working in this field. 

In the process of China’s modernization one of the most funda- 
mental questions is how to maintain an inner unity within the 
conscious experience of the race. China is not so compact as 
Japan, for instance. Both from the need of a wide territory not 
yet all connected by modern means of communication, and from 
the need of a healthy continuous readjustment, the inner core of 
the old culture must be strenuously maintained. The schools 
have a serious responsibility here. But again, it must be em- 
phatically pointed out that book knowledge—the mere memory 


1 Witness the attempt at re-classifying ancient schools of Chinese thought by Hu Suh in 
Outlines of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 1; and the announced publication of the historical 
work by Liang Chi Chao on the History of Chinese Culture. 


54 Education for Modernization in China 


of the classics and selections from treasured literature—is not an 
effective means. Whatever ideals, precepts, and social usages 
that deserve preservation must be incorporated in actual practice 
in the schools. They must be “lived” by the students. The school 
environment should supply the adequate situations for the stimu- 
lation of practices that will demand and lead to the garnered ex- 
perience of the race. A real and vital revival of old culture must 
be based upon a re-embodiment of the old truths in the new 
environment. 

It is easy to hold on to old faiths and practices, resisting all 
change. It is also not difficult to be swayed by new patterns and 
to give up all that is old. In fact, it is often observed that those 
who hold fastest to tradition will turn to be the the most ardent 
—and in the same unreasoned manner—worshippers of the new. 
To be ever open and ready to adapt requires at least intelligence, 
if not wisdom. To transform old faiths and practices to suit new 
needs is the task of the adjuster, and consequently the task of 
the educator. The attitude of adjustment is a close correlative of 
the attitude of exploration. If the attitude of exploration is en- 
couraged in the schools, naturally one of the immediate fields to 
explore is that of old customs, institutions and creations still in 
practice as well as recorded in books. This is a confirmation of 
the view of the present inquiry that the education for moderniza- 
tion, as understood and analyzed in these chapters, actually aug- 
ments rather than hinders the movement for the preservation of 
the truly living elements in the old cultural heritage. It is the 
belief of the writer that it is only by an education that properly 
emphasizes the process of modernization rather than the products 
of modernism, can adequate preservation and readaption of old 
culture ever be accomplished with an effective method of ap- 
proach. 


2. Does the school activity allow and encourage the searching for 
“human” values in the products and processes of modern culture? 


By stressing the needs for material development and expansion 
in China in Criteria IV, the reader may wonder whether the 
writer is conscious of the disturbing lack of harmony in the 
modern world. Is China going to reproduce another materialized 
modern nation? 


Proposed Criteria for Curriculum Construction 55 


The ills of the acquisitive society are not lost sight of in the 
formulation of these criteria. China must be developed materially 
because, if she does not do so herself, the aggressive modern na- 
tions will “expand” in China by means of her resources at her 
expense. It is still an open question whether China can stop the 
tide. All the capitalists of the expansive peoples are eagerly plan- 
ning to turn China into a paradise for profiteers. And while the 
instincts of possession and self-preservation of the Chinese are 
thus stimulated vigorously to react, there will be the inevitable 
tendency and temptation, it is to be admitted, for China to follow 
the paths of material competition to the extent of increasing the 
seething contention in the boiling caldron of the modern world. 
But if we are not pessimists or fatalists, the efforts of “human- 
ization” of the modern monster—the Great Society—must be 
shared by the “humanists” of all modern peoples—especially, it 
seems, the responsibility should fall upon the nations that are 
foremost in “expansion.” 

However, as a point for the curriculum makers to heed, the 
Chinese youth must be allowed and encouraged to go deeper than 
merely copying modern fashions and methods. He must learn 
to search for “human” values, and to appreciate that there are 
prophets and seers of the modern world who are shouting in the 
wilderness against the crassness and cruelty of the competitive 
phases of modern material expansion. 


CHAPTER VII 


PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS IN A PROGRAM OF 
CURRICULUM CONSTRUCTION 


Three Steps in the Program. In education as in other fields of 
human endeavor, the incentive for change in the habituated mode of 
organization naturally comes from dissatisfactions of results which 
are supposed to be due to defects in the form of organization. In the 
school system of China discontents have been so very pointed and 
numerous in recent years that some form of reorganization is abso- 
lutely needed. This is true especially of the curriculum. 

The discontents, however, may be based on a vague feeling of dis- 
satisfaction ; and it is quite possible that the alleged defects may have 
been due to factors quite different from those which have been con- 
sidered as the causes for the unsatisfactory conditions. Consequently 
careful investigation must be made before it is quite certain that when 
these defects are remedied, the resultant dissatisfactions will alse 
disappear. In making such an investigation, it is but natural that 
certain standards or criteria must be employed. Here is one of the 
urgent uses of the criteria proposed. 

The first step in a systematic program of curriculum making is, 
therefore, the survey and evaluation of current school activities in the 
existing schools of China. Such a survey should cover three fields, 
(1) course of study as prescribed by official ordinances issued by the 
Ministry of Education, (2) subjects and detailed content of studies 
as embodied in current textbooks, and (3) school activities as they 
are actually carried on in various schools. The third field is the most 
important because such investigation will reveal the real conditions as 
found in the various schools—to what extent the official ordinances 
are carried out in letter and in spirit and to what extent the contents © 
of the textbooks are relied upon as guides for the teachers and as 
untrespassable confines for the efforts of the students. Investigation 
in this third field will be difficult, because it deals directly with human 
reactions going on within the school. 

Investigation will reveal the concrete defects to be remedied but 


Preliminary Considerations of 


is not an end in itself. The second step that should follow is careful 
and critical planning in the direction of a new school content. Under 
the present conditions in- secondary education in China this step 
should consider such crucial topics as (1) the place and function of 
the middle school in the educational system, (2) the advantages and 
disadvantages of horizontal grading, and (3) the uses and abuses of 
“logically” formulated studies. 

After investigation and planning, the third step should be experi- 
mentation. Certain schools should be encouraged to try new forms of 
content in order that the function of the school may be better ful- 
filled. Whatever results are found through experimentation, will be 
at the service of the whole educational system to adopt. A sug- 
gested content is proposed in the next chapter as an illustration of 
a possible basis for experimentation. 

In all these three steps of investigation, planning, and experimen- 
tation, much painstaking effort needs to be put forth. Such work, if 
deemed important enough to the welfare of the nation at the present 
hour, should claim the attention and encouragement of educators. 
The present inquiry is a meagre and extremely limited approach in 
the direction of the work to be done. It will serve, it is hoped, as a 
preliminary discussion to this important endeavor, 


Application of the Criteria. In all the three steps in the program, 
the proposed criteria as discussed in the preceding chapter should> 
prove to be of service. From the point of view of application, the five 
criteria suggested naturally fall into three groups: 

a. Concerning What to Do, that is, the activities that are concrete 
and specific in character, that supply content matter as ordinarily 
understood. Criteria I and IV have to do mostly with this. 

b. Concerning How to Do, that is, the manner in which the activi- 
ties are carried on in the schools, or in other words, how the contents 
as measured according to Criteria I and IV will be “lived” by the 
students in the school community. Criteria II and III have to do 
more with this. 

c. Concerning Why to Do, that is, the meaning of activities as 
they are carried on in the school, such meaning should inculcate in 
the student a humanistic point of view that will, on the one hand, 
counteract the material expressions of the expansive and industrial 
type of existence, and on the other, preserve and readapt the ethical 


58 Education for Modernization in China 


norms that have been evolved in the Chinese experience. Criterion 
V belongs here. 

These demarcations are not strictly mutually exclusive, but they 
serve to concentrate on particular phases in the school activities when 
we use the Criteria in investigation, planning, or experimentation. 
We shall make our suggestions, however, mostly along the What to 
Do and How to Do, leaving the Why out of explicit discussion, as it 
should permeate and be expressed in the What and the How. 


SURVEY AND EVALUATION OF CURRENT PRACTICE 


1. School Subjects as Prescribed in the Official Ordinances. In 
Chapter II we have already discussed the provisions in the middle 
school curriculum as prescribed by the Ministry of Education. By 
tracing back to the assumptions more obviously unfounded, we have 
already seen how inadequate they are in meeting the urgent needs in 
education to-day. 

The contents of the official curriculum are of such stereotyped 
nature that from it can hardly be expected any organic results as 
required by Criteria I and [V. The subjects are unrelated and each 
forms a “logical”’ whole by itself, with little or no regard for its use 
in the students’ activities in school or later in life. 

It is in the manner in which the activities are carried on that the 
more unsatisfactory aspects of the official curriculum are revealed. 
It provides no definite codperative manner of doing that would, on 
the one hand, train cooperative endeavor on the basis of equal oppor- 
tunity for participation and, on the other, give opportunities for the 
development of an effective leadership. Also, there is no definite 
provision for the emphasis of unifying life effort through action. 
The official prescription gives one the sense of preponderant import- 
ance of book learning only. 


2. School Textbooks and Their Contents. The school textbooks 
determine to a great extent the content as well as the method of school 
activities. This is especially true in conditions where the subject 
matter is new to the teacher and the students are asked to reproduce 
slavishly the content in the texts in the order as given. A study in 
this field should include, (1) what texts are being extensively used 
in the schools to-day, (2) the space that the texts give to the various 
topics as prescribed in the official standards for the middle school 


Preliminary Considerations ao 


curriculum, (3) the order of treatment of the topics, and (4) the 
psychological reactions on the part of the pupils to the subject mat- 
ter and to the order of arrangement. When such a study is carefully 
made with the support of quantitative methods, the result should 
prove most illuminating. It should be of use not only to those who 
put their complete trust in the efficacy of separate subjects of study 
in the curriculum, but also to those who are disposed to use the texts 
only as references in connection with what the pupils wish to find 
out during their activities in school. The importance of textbooks 
cannot be over-stated and a study along this line is urgent whatever 
may be one’s belief in regard to the more radical phases of educa- 
tional reform. 


3. Activities as Actually Practised in the Schools. Concerning the 
method of approach in this field of investigation, there are two 
correlated and mutually indispensable channels of information, (1) by 
empirical judgment of trained visitors, and (2) by quantitative data. 
They should supplement each other and adjust themselves according 
to the concrete problems to be investigated. The personal judginent 
is important because it can take care of a large number of factors on 
the basis of wide comparison and sympathetic insight. The quantita- 
tive data furnish the impersonal records, objective, convenient, sys- 
tematic, and ever-ready at the elbow of the administrator. It will be 
rather unfortunate that either the personal or the quantitative 
approach should assume the sole authority in any field of investi- 
gation. 

In both methods, criteria for judgment and for guidance are indis- 
pensable. Especially in the quantitative approach should the investi- 
gator keep constantly in mind the objectives of the activities which 
he happens to be investigating. A mere meaningless, though skillful, 
manipulation of quantitative tools neglectful of the human objectives 
would be a waste of effort and a stimulator of contention.’ 


PLANNING IN THE DIRECTION OF A NEW CONTENT 
1. The Place and Function of Middle Schools in the Educational 
System 


Strategic Importance of Middle Schools. Schools of secondary 
rank are classified according to the course of study. They are (1) 


1See Bagley, W. C., “Educational Determinism, or Democracy and the I. Q.,”’ School and 
Society, April 8, 1922. 


60 Education for Modernization in China 


Middle Schools with the general course, (2) Normal Schools with 
the teacher-training course, and (3) Class “A” Vocational Schools, 
including courses in agriculture, industry and commerce. According 
to the 1916 school census, the number of schools and the number of 
students are as follows: 


No. oF SCHOOLS No. oF STUDENTS 
Middlesschools.-7 2.07) ae. ee eee 444 69,770 
Notiiabemchools 2. ti, ates fee ee 211 27,975 
nA HY OCATIONAl OCHOOIS saute tim ek ee 96 10,541 
Unclassined satan. eee co eee Ar: 359 18,159 
ehotal stocks ee ee eee 1,110 126,445 


When the census was taken, it was according to the government 
system of seven-year elementary school and four-year secondary. 
The National Conference of Provincial Associations of Education, 
which met at Canton October 1921, recommended a change to a 6-3-3 
plan with six-year primary, three-year Junior Middle School, and 
three-year Senior Middle School. The plan has not been adopted 
officially and is just in the experimental stage. If adopted, the num- 
ber of students in the middle schools will be somewhat increased. 

In the opening address of the National Conference of Middle 
School Principals, called by the Ministry of Education at Peking in 
October 1918, the then Minister of Education said: “The elementary 
education period of our country is much shorter in comparison with 
other countries, and the vocational schools and continuation schools 
of the elementary and secondary grade are still very limited in devel- 
opment on account of lack of funds in the localities. For these 
reasons, if we hope for the results of a complete general education 
as well as vocational usefulness in society that comes from a general 
education, we cannot but rely on the middle schools. Judging from 
the condition of education at present, to reform the actual content in 
the middle schools is the key to the educational problems of the 
country.” * 

The Middle Schools, especially those in the large educational cen- 
ters, are the places where the ambitious youths of the land gather. It 
is in these schools that the leaders of the coming generation will be 
made or unmade. The Middle Schools in centers such as Peking, 
Nanking, Tientsin, Shanghai, Canton, etc., are mostly schools with a 


1 Proceedings of the National Conference of the Middle School Principals, October, 1918. 


Preliminary Considerations 61 


large percentage of boarders, sometimes approaching eight-tenths 
of the school population. These come from almost all the provinces 
and from the inland districts of the province in which the school is 
situated. For instance, in such a school as the Nankai School of 
Tientsin, in 1920-1921, out of the total number of 1131 students, 
410 are from the province of Chili in which Tientsin is situated, and 
721 come from nineteen other provinces. Other middle schools in the 
large educational centers-may have a relatively smaller proportion 
of students from outside the province, but it is quite clear that the 
middle schools in China are not at all like the high schools in the 
United States, that is, they are not neighborhood schools, but are 
mostly boarding schools. Hence, the influence of their education on 
account of.the closer contact of living together is far more potent 


i . 
‘and pervasive. 


\ Leadership Education. In the classical times in China education 
was divided into two kinds: (1) general and (2) for leadership. 
When the system was at its height, all children of the aristocracy and 
lof the people went to elementary schools for general education at 
‘the age of eight. There they were taught the simple etiquette of con- 
duct and elements of the Six Arts, namely, Ritual, Music, Archery, 


pe Writing, and Numbers. At the age of fifteen the 


children of the aristocrats and the promising children of the common 


people were admitted into the institutions of high learning where 


they were trained in developing their individual powers, in methods 
‘of studying things, in regulating their personal conduct, and in the 
art of leadership in various social spheres.’ 

The old type of leadership training became more and more literary 
in the subsequent dynasties. It was gradually limited to the sphere of 
scholarship and governmental affairs. The students of to-day are 
trying their best to break the bonds restricting their activities to the 
traditional spheres of politics and literary pursuits. As a matter of 
habit the people still look upon the students in the middle and higher 


_ schools as the rightful and responsible leaders of the nation. 


Judging from the ratio of students in the Middle Schools to the 
total population of the nation—roughly, less than one in 3000—the 
function of the middle schools in the system should distinctly be the 
preparation and training for leadership. By leadership is meant not 


*See Chu Hsi, Introduction to “Ta Hsuch,’? or The Great Learning, one of the Four 
Books. 


62 Education for Modernization in China 


only in the traditional sphere of the scholar, but also in the modern 
industrial and commercial activities. 

The present-day system sets up a ladder from the middle schools 
up through college and professional institutions for the training of 
leaders, and the line drawn between the middle schools and the higher 
institutions is too sharp. There is no objective evidence why such 
a mechanical ladder should be followed so closely. May not the set 
pattern of middle school, then college, then professional training, be 
a waste of time and effort for many of the youths? Even in the 
United States—a country with a firmly established modern school 
system—there is the feeling coming to be prevalent that ‘a thorough 
scrutiny of our educational systems will reveal inexcusable waste of 
time in the four-year high school and four-year college courses. 
Compression will make for concentration and real training, instead of 
merely time-spending.” * And President Angell of Yale writes in 
connection with the discussion of preparation for students of law. 
“Due consideration should be given to the successful efforts now 
being made, especially in the Middle West, to reduce by one or two 
years the time required for completing a college and high-school 
course. There is good reason to believe that this can be done with 
an improvement rather than a deterioration in the training given.” 

Leadership in various fields makes certain immediate and con- 
crete demands. These demands can be objectively discovered to 
determine what kind of training the Chinese youths will need to meet 
the specific demands of any particular field. To go through a tradi- 
tional formalism of long standing is bad enough, but to force the 
youths through a borrowed formalism seems to be an unpardonable 
mistake. 

That men of modern powers are needed is undeniable, especially in 
the various fields of endeavor that have been brought into close con- 
tact with foreign competition. How men can be trained with the 
skilled and steady hand, the alert and creative mind, and the firm, 
daring, and codperative spirit is the supreme problem of the educa- 
tors of this period. Future leaders must be endowed with certain 
general abilities and also must have the special training needed in the 
special fields in which they will do their life work. Leadership educa- 
tion must aim at direct usefulness. The training must be varied ac- 
cording to the varied talents and needs. It may be carried on in one 


1 Editorial comment, The New Republic, March 29, 1922, p. 139. 
2 JTbid., p. 139. 


Preliminary Considerations 63 


institution or in several institutions. It may end after two or three 
years of training, or it may last for eight or ten years. It may 
require individuals shutting themselves away from the crowd, or it 
may require close cooperative adjustment. With all these varied 
expressions and forms, only a simple fact is being stated, that leader- 
ship education should correspond, in quantity, quality and kind, as 
closely as possible to the direct demands as found in the social situa- 
tion to-day. Inasmuch as nearly all of the schools, so-called middle, 
should have as their chief function at the present time the training 
for leaders, there is no justification for a sharply drawn demarcation 
between the middle schools and the higher institutions. The idea 
that the secondary period is simply a period of vague “general educa- 
tion” is a borrowed idea that does not fit either present needs or 
Chinese historical experience. Under this conception, the middle 
schools have produced and are producing graduates who know a 
little of the various branches of school studies, but who are not use- 
ful in any particular field of productive work. In the careful and 
critical planning for a new content, therefore, it seems imperative 
that, first of all, the place and function of the so-called middle schools 
to-day should be clearly recognized. Whether we approve of it or not, 
both the public and the students themselves regard the middle schools 
as places where leadership education is given. Consequently the 
educators should no longer blind themselves with the idea that the 
function of the middle school is to complete, in a mystical way, 
such a thing as “general education.” The middle schools in a new 
arrangement should recognize clearly their responsibilities in leader- 
ship training to the students who go to them as well as to the nation 
that demands leaders to be trained. 

It is quite possible that after careful consideration we shall find 
that there is needed in leadership education in the various fields some 
period of preliminary adjustment and guidance for, let us say, three 
or four years. In this early period of leadership training the func- 
tion of the school should include (1) training in leadership qualities 
needed in all fields, such qualities as strong and well-coordinated 
bodily movements, sense training, thinking ability, knowledge of men, 
and historical and political background for present-day problems in 
the nation, and (3) guidance on the basis of diagnosis of individual 
students through the furnishing of concrete experiences in the voca- 
tions which the students are inclined to take up as life work. 


“é 


64 Education for Modernization in China 


If such a period should be found desirable in leadership education, 
we should not isolate it as a junior or senior middle school period 
by itself, but we should closely coordinate the training given during 
this period with the further training needed by the individual stu- 
dents. It is during these three or four years that the students should 
be guided in finding what special field of vocation they are especially 
fitted for, how long a training that field will require, and when they 
should advisably leave school training altogether. 

The experimentation in higher education should begin with this 
early stage of leadership training. Mere verbal changes in the educa- 
tional system help no one. A survey should be made of the concrete 
needs in the various fields of leadership as enumerated, for instance, 
under Criterion IV in Chapter VI. On the basis of such an inquiry 
some objective facts can be obtained to determine what higher 
education is really for. Without such an inquiry all attempts along 
this line of endeavor are either blind copying or mere guess work, 
though well intentioned. 


2. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Horizontal Grading 


Children in the modern school systems of the Western World are 
graded horizontally by groups in the interest of economy for pur- 
poses of teaching and administration. But mechanization that has 
come about because of the graded system has shown itself in the 
neglect of individual talents and in the rigidity and inflexibility of 
promotion from one stage to another in the course of study. While 
it is recognized that some system of classification might be a neces- 
sary measure wherever children are dealt with in large numbers, yet 
especially in leadership education we must never lose sight of the 
maximum importance of the individuals under training. 

In the modern schools of the western nations, various plans 
have been invented to modify the effects of over-mechanization 
in horizontal grading, such as follows: 

1. Supplementary special classes for the comparatively slow 
and the comparatively superior children. 

2. Provision of parallel groups differing in the rate of prog- 
ress and with different years for graduation. Individual students 
may be shifted from one group to another at any time during the 
course. Such grouping seems able also in taking care of those 
who progress rapidly at one stage and slowly at another. 


Preliminary Considerations 65 


3. Supplying of an additional teacher in the classroom to look 
after the slower pupils. This plan is usually coupled by the de- 
vice of varying the demands made upon pupils for the satisfac- 
tory completion of any given grade. 

4. Increasing use of the elective system of measuring pupil’s 
progress, not by undifferentiated grade attainment, but by achieve- 
ment in units. 

All of these attempts have been found useful in one place or 
another in alleviating the ill effects of the strictly mechanized 
method of grading in the schools. But there are those who are 
not satisfied with the makeshifts and half-way measures of modi- 
fication. They include not only those who are doing experimen- 
tation in education, but also some of the more progressive prac- 
tical administrators in American education to-day.” Whatever 
may be the intrinsic worth and ultimate effect of this group of 
reformers, it can safely be said that the graded system as it has 
been used since about 1850 is by no means a settled issue. All the 
emphasis in recent years, especially in the higher schools, points 
to the direction of a more and more individual type of classifica- 
tion in the schools. 

While such is the present-day standing of the graded system 
in the West, some doubt may properly be reserved in our minds 
as to whether the mechanical device for horizontal grading an- 
swers the needs of Chinese school conditions, especially in the 
education for leadership. The traditional practice in Chinese edu- 
cation has been individual instruction, each pupil advancing ac- 
cording to his own ability. Such a practice deserves criticism 
inasmuch as it provides little or no room for cooperative effort 
on the part of the pupils in the schools. But the importance of 
individual differences has had its proper recognition in Chinese 
experience. i 

While proper attention should be given to the technique of 
organization where large numbers of students are grouped to- 
gether—this is the new factor that the traditional system did not 
have to take into consideration—in the planning of a new con- 
tent for leadership education, emphasis should be put on indi- 

1See article by Superintendent Washburn on “Individual System in Winnetka, IIl., 


Elementary School Journal, 1921. 
Also, Dewey, Evelyn, The Dalton Laboratory Plan. 


66 Education for Modernization in China 


vidual variation in the rate of progress. Some plan should be 
devised by means of which both cooperative activities and indi- 
vidual freedom will have their proper place in the school. The 
present-day tendency in the middle schools in China is in favor 
of more and more elective courses and studies. It is all advance 
in the right direction. But the distinction between the elective 
system and the “individual system” properly understood must be 
borne in mind. In the elective system the individual students do 
have the freedom of choice of courses or subjects, but within the 
group where that course or that subject is taken up, the classifi- 
cation of progress is still limited by mass grading. For instance, 
when a student takes up a certain subject A, he has to join a 
class in which A is taught and usually there is a requirement, 
and a necessary requirement from the point of view of adminis- 
tration, that a prescribed number of students must elect the sub- 
ject before it can be offered. After he joins the class, where the 
subject A is studied, he has to progress at the same rate with 
the mass of the students in that class. While in a properly ad- 
ministered “individual system,” a student should have free- 
dom in choosing any subject of interest to him with the under- 
standing, of course, that that subject will be of real use in his 
activities in school or after leaving school—the proper judgment 
here should be made with the full consent of the teacher and 
administrator—and he would not have to wait for a certain re- 
quired number of students sufficiently interested in the same sub- 
ject. And even if there are others, who are interested in that 
subject at the same time, his rate of progress need not be slowed 
or hastened according to the norm set by the class. There are 
difficulties undoubtedly with the individual system in adminis- 
tration and in teaching, just as there have been difficulties in the 
mass grading system, but it has enough concrete results of its 
effectiveness both in Chinese traditional experience and in recent 
American experimentation to deserve careful consideration in the 
reorganization of leadership education in China. 


3. The Uses and Abuses of Formulated Studies 


Professor Dewey writes: “There is a strong temptation to 
assume that presenting subject matter in its perfected form pro- 
vides a royal road to learning. What more natural than to sup- 


Preliminary Considerations 6/ 


pose that the immature can be saved time and energy, and be 
protected from needless error by commencing where competent 
inquirers have left off? The outcome is written large in the his- 
tory of education. Pupils begin their study of science with 
texts in which the subject is organized into topics according to 
the order of the specialist. Technical concepts, with their defini- 
tions, are introduced at the outset. Laws are introduced at a 
very early stage, with at best a few indications of the way in 
which they were arrived at. The pupils learn a ‘science’ instead 
of learning the scientific way of treating the familiar material of 
ordinary experience. The method of the advanced student domi- 
nates college teaching; the approach of the college is transferred 
into the high school, and so down the line, with such omissions 
as may make the subject easier.” ’ 

“The logical order,” writes Professor Kilpatrick, “is taking a 
mental organization fit for grown-ups, chopping it into pieces, 
and giving it piece at a time to the child to learn.’”” The psy- 
chological ineffectiveness of subject matter entirely isolated from 
any of the meaningful activities in which the students can take a 
whole-hearted interest has been gradually more and more recog- 
nized in recent years.’ In the place of the “logical” order, the 
“psychological” order has been proposed, which is “the order of 
experience, of discovery, and of consequent learning.” It begins 
with the experience of the learner and develops from that the 
proper modes of scientific treatment. “The apparent loss of time 
involved is more than made up for by the superior understand- 
ing and vital interest secured. What the pupil learns he at least 
understands. Moreover, by following, in connection with prob- 
lems selected from the material of ordinary acquaintance, the 
methods by which scientific men have reached their perfected 
knowledge, he gains independent power to deal with material 
within his range, and avoids the mental confusion and intellec- 
tual distaste attendant upon studying matter whose meaning is 
only symbolic.’” 

1 Dewey, John, Democracy and Education, p. 257. 

2 Kilpatrick, W. H., “Psychological and Logical,” in The Journal of Educational Method, 
March 1922, p. 281. 

* See Kilpatrick, W. H., “The Project Method,” Teachers College Bulletin, 1919. 


* Kilpatrick, W. H., “Psychological and Logical,” loc. cit., p. 280. 
* Dewey, John, op. cit., p. 258. 


68 Education for Modernization in China 


There is a further reason why separated, uncoordinated, “logi- 
cally” arranged subjects of study have been found to be ineffec- 
tive. It is the impossibility of including within the curriculum of 
the school the increasingly enormous amount of formulated 
knowledge in the present-day world. The school can no longer 
aspire to teach encyclopedic knowledge. It has to seek some 
effective means and some organic unity by which the students 
can be led to grow in these fundamental powers that will meet 
the demands of the outside world upon their leaving school. 

That organic unity which is so pre-eminently important in a 
world of growing diversity should be found, as we have indicated 
under Criterion III in Chapter VI, in whole-hearted objective 
action on the part of the pupils. The “logically” formulated sub- 
ject matter has its proper use as a tool in the carrying out of vital 
actions both in school and outside. It surely has lost all magical 
value it formerly had when formulated knowledge of mankind 
was limited within a closed space. 

In the Chinese schools to-day, the old habit of giving too much 
respect to formulated learning still lingers on. The teachers as 
well as the students are still apt to stick closely to prescribed 
subjects and hurriedly prepared textbooks of the mechanical 
order. They study the subjects and texts with the same reverence 
as they did the classical books of long standing which formed the 
principal part of the content of the traditional school. To revere 
the old classical books is proper, to memorize them to-day is un- 
necessary ; but to revere and memorize modern textbooks is in- 
effective and ridiculous. The formulated subject matter deserves 
its rightful consideration, but it should not be allowed to work 
more harm than good. . 

To sum up briefly, the important propositions are (1) that book 
learning should never be looked upon as an end in itself, (2) that 
formulated material has its proper place as tools, and (3) that the 
end in view should always be the successful completion of some 
intended action to be carried on. If the students acquire this atti- 
tude while they are going through their activities in the schools, 
they are not likely to overrate or underrate the proper signifi- 
cance and practical uses of formulated knowledge. 


ChAT Re MLS 


A2SUGGHRSTED CONTENT BOR THE KARLY. STAGES OF 
DEADERSHIP EDUGATION ASA BASIS FOR 
BxX:PERIMENTATION 


What is presented in this chapter is but an outline of school 
activities devised for the purpose of supplying the experience of 
modernization in the most effective manner within the possibilities of 
conscious education for leadership. 

It will look like the first draft scenario of an elaborate drama. 
The chief movements and incidents of the drama are here 
sketched, but the concrete body of the play will have to depend 
on the actors who will take part in the play and the stage possi- 
bilities of the theatre where the play will be produced. The 
significant difference between this educational drama and the 
plays as given on the “boards” lies in the important fact that the 
actors will have all the freedom to improvise incidents as well as 
manners of acting as they proceed from one experience to another, 
so long as the ultimate aim of the activities is not lost sight of. 


The Theme of the Play. In one word, the theme of the play is 
Modernization. The chief movements in the play will be the experi- 
ences of a new and expanding community in an environment with 
challenging as well as promising opportunities. 

The play aims to achieve two things for the actors who go through 
the experiences in it: (1) To increase in the general qualities and 
powers of leadership, and (2) To experience beginnings of vocations 
in order that they might decide on the field oftheir life calling. 


Actors in the Play. The actors are chiefly the students and the 
teachers. 

The students may be 14 or 15 years of age’ when they begin. The 
play may last three or more years, depending upon individual con- 
ditions. They come from various social backgrounds and with cer- 
tain preliminary educational attainments. A large part of them, if 


1 They usually leave home to go to the educational centres at about this age. They are 
mature enough to go through the serious training here outlined. They correspond in age 
to the senior high school students. 


70 Education for Modernization in China 


\ 
not all, live in school dormitories, as is the case with most of our 
middle class schools to-day. 


The teachers have their part to play, and a very important part it 
is. Their experience in acting and their knowledge of the technique 
of acting in various situations naturally make them very valuable 
coaches as well as co-actors in the play. 


Furthermore, there is the supreme importance of example. This 
cannot be overemphasized for the early stages of leadership training. 
For boys of this age, learning by example is almost mystically power- 
ful. Only the type of men who deserve to be reproduced should be 
given the opportunity of teaching in the early period of leadership 
education. Such a high ideal has always been in the tradition of the 
teaching profession of China. Only in the modern schools so-called 
is there evidence to-day of very depressing deviations from the stan- 
dard set for the high teaching privilege. It is because of the mislead- 
ing practice of dividing the content of modern education into isolated 
subjects of study that the pernicious phenomenon of the educational 
tradesmen has come into our midst. These teachers teach in a school 
receiving a pay for the goods they deal out, feeling no responsibility 
for the organic, growing beings that attend their classes; Some of 
these men try to get as many places to teach as their hours will per- 
mit because they look upon teaching just as a trade; the more they 
sell, the more prosperous their business and income. Any teachers 
who have been contaminated in the least degree by this pernicious 
practice of cutting up the school content into uncorrelated hits of 
supposed knowledge should naturally be out of place in an experi- 
ment such as we propose to carry out. The ancient honors of the 
schoolmaster in China are being polluted, and it seems that, only by 
relieving the spirit of the ancient ideal, can we hope to provide our 
schools with men who are worthy of the task. 


The Three Parts of the Play. The play may be roughly divided into 
three parts. They are: Part 1: Exploring and Pioneering; Part II: 
New Community Building; Part III: Scientific Producing and Or- 
ganizing. 

This demarcation is simply for the purpose of giving relative 
emphasis to the significant movements in the play. Beginnings of all 
the three movements, for instance, will be introduced in the first year, 
though the chief emphasis there will be on Exploring and Pioneering. 


Leadership Education as a Basis for Experimentation 71 


Part I will take up approximately one year, and so will Part II. 
Part III will be one year or longer according to the talents and 
conditions of the individual students. 

In the treatment of the content of these parts, the order followed 
will be: 

1. The chief incidents suggested for that part. These need not 
be followed in full. They are of suggestive value only. In fact, one 
of the important points for the actors of this play is to invent incidents 
as they go along. 

2. The tools, properties and technique of acting needed in that 
part. 

3. The spirit of the ensemble that should result from the acting 
in that part. 

In educational terminology, the order will be: (1) the school pro- 
jects or activities, (2) the formulated studies that will be called upon 
for use in the carrying out of the purposed projects as well as organ- 
ized from these experiences for future use in analogous but wider 
situations, and (3) the school “tone” or atmosphere as expressed in 
the social organization and the social ideals. 


Chances for Production. Before taking up the detailed treatment 
of the three parts, it is fair to ask that in the turmoil of the transition 
in China to-day, what are the practical chances of such a scheme 
being tried out even as experimentation, not to say for wide adoption? 
It is imperative that this question must be frankly faced, otherwise 
the whole suggested content can be regarded as a mere fancy, a 
castle in the air. Some of the forces working for its possible useful- 
ness may be summed up as follows: 

1. The thirst for properly prepared leaders, and the dissatisfac- 
tion with the present arrangement of leadership education. This is 
widely felt but there are as yet very few creative solutions proposed. 

2. The awakening student body that makes it harder and harder 
to administer the mechanical type of education by memory and book 
knowledge only. 

3. The beginning of an attempt to think a little below the surface 
before being satisfied with borrowings from foreign practices. 

To overcome the obstacles on the way as well as to spread the 
idea of the new scheme, three measures may be adopted: 

1. To educate the public to demand the effective kind of education. 


vey 


ips Education for Modernization in China 


2. To demonstrate to the students the advisability of a new type 
of training that takes into consideration all the good things to which 
they aspire, as well as defines the new kind of discipline they must 
go through. 

3. To train new teachers who are thoroughly acquainted with 
the needed knowledge, skills and attitudes for the carrying out of the 
new program. 

The first two measures require attention to proper publicity by 
making use of national conferences, writings of popular trustworthy 
scholars, and private organizations that are engaged in educational 
research and reformation. The third measure must be attacked 
through teachers’ colleges, where teachers for middle schools are 
trained, and through universities that offer courses in education. 

But the most effective propaganda is by concrete results through 
experimentation. This can be carried on in connection with some 
teachers’ college, some university, or some organization interested in 
educational research. 

If the proposals should be taken up in actual experimentation in 
one or more places in China, and if the results of such experimenta- 
tion should prove fruitful and reliable, it will then be the task of 
practical administrators to devise the adequate administrative ma- 
chinery for the effective carrying out of the proposed scheme in a 
large number of schools. 

We have indicated the general outline as to how the suggested 
scheme can be put into practice. The initial motive force must, of 
course, depend on personal endeavor. 


Part I, ExPpLoriINnG AND PIONEERING 


A. THE PROJECTS * 


1. To explore the community in which the students happen to live: 
To survey the physical contour of the surrounding country, to 
make plane and relief maps as result of survey; to trace one river — 
near the community to its source; to visit points of interest in some 
mountain range; or to visit the sea, if accessible. To observe fauna 
and flora of the surrounding country, to collect specimens for school 
museum. To observe the chief occupations of people in the commu- 
nity and of the people living in the country districts near by. 


1 These are suggested only. 


Leadership Education as a Basis for Experimentation 73 


2. To take care of their own needs in a pioneering situation: 
To know where food comes from, to prepare some form of food 
for themselves; to know how they are sheltered; to know what 
they wear and where the material of their clothing comes from, 
to weave and tailor some wearing article of their own; to take 
care of their own bodies, to practise hygienic habits, to make 
their bodies strong and agile; to know how to find their way in 
any new and unfamiliar surrounding; to have three or four weeks 
of actual experience in camp life. 


B. THE FORMULATED STUDIES 


Before enumerating the formulated studies to be used as tools 
in connection with the acting of Part I, it may be stated here that 
the students in the process of desiring certain things done will 
find themselves in need of certain information or tools; they will 
then go to the teacher or to the books to find the required knowl- 
edge or the needed implement. After securing it, they will return 
to use that knowledge or implement in pursuing their immediate 
activity. After the completion of the activity, they may feel or 
be brought to see that a certain branch of study or a certain 
known tool is important enough to deserve a careful investiga- 
tion in itself, with the object in view of using this formulated 
knowledge or known implement for the solution of future diff- 
culties analogous to the one which they have just had the satis- 
faction of solving. The formulated studies as outlined below are 
thus always to be regarded as means, never as ends. 


1. The Languages. 


Chinese: Training in oral and written composition through re- 
ports of things actually seen and experienced; practising hand- 
writing so that the written reports may be presentable in form; 
learning simple rules of grammar so that written reports may be 
correct in construction and style; writing and editing a school 
paper composed of reports of activities; noting the actual living 
phrases used by the people in the community and the surround- 
ing country. 

English: Reading stories of modern pioneering ; conversing with 
English-speaking residents in the community, if any; knowing 
names of materials used in food, shelter, and clothing that come 


74 Education for Modernization in China 


from foreign countries; writing letters to foreign firms at home 
or abroad ordering such materials; learning simple grammatical 
constructions in process of writing, practising handwriting so 
that the letters may be legible and presentable in form. 


2. Mathematics: Practising arithmetical calculations in connec- 
tion with the needs of providing food, shelter, and clothing; 
learning to keep simple accounts for individual use and for the 
school community; practising surveying, learning elements of 
geometry and trigonometry for surveying and map-making; 
making plans for foundation and structure of some building, 
learning geometrical drawing in the design; learning simple 
methods of presenting facts on charts and graphs in the process 
of making reports. 


3. Natural Sciences: WKnowing the flora and fauna of the sur- 
rounding country, learning classification in order to provide sys- 
tem in the collected data in the school museum; learning simple 
facts in astronomy and physical geography in order to find di- 
rection and to know the signs of changing seasons; knowing the 
formation of the earth in connection with the tracing of a river 
to its source and in visiting some mountain range or sea; learn- 
ing to keep eyes open in the surveying of significant factors in 
the physical environment; learning to use cataloguing system in 
collecting observations in preparation for making reports; learn- 
ing simple physical, chemical and biological facts in connection 
with the problem of food, shelter, clothing and physical exercise. 


4. Social Sciences: Learning the history of the community and 
environment (including the nation), appreciating the process of 
ascertaining historical facts and drawing reliable conclusions 
from them; knowing the history of industries in connection with 
food, housing, and clothing; knowing the early history of the 
development of Chinese culture; knowing the beginnings of 
exploration and pioneering in the history of modern nations; 
knowing the policies of the governments of the expanding na- 
tions, in regard to territories, markets, and the conquering of 
foreign peoples, learning how these policies have affected China; 
knowing elements of economics in connection with the primary 
necessities of life; knowing the real conditions—how the surround- 
ing people live, including poverty, unemployment, the produc- 


Leadership Education as a Basis for Experimentation 75 


tion and distribution of wealth, and the traditional social institu- 
tions in the social organization. 

5. Vocational Skills: Building a house or a part thereof, using 
the common tools in the building; weaving some kind of cloth- 
ing material; planting crops for food, including caring of the soil; 
observing and classifying the prevailing vocations of the com- 
munity and of the surrounding country; learning how some 
foreign materials that have come to China are made in their na- 
tive countries. 

6. Games and Recreation: Knowing the real need of strong 
bodies in a pioneering environment; learning games and sports 
for the development of strong bodies and cooperative spirit; 
putting on play dramatizing some phase of pioneering experiences 
of the modern West. 


C.. THE SCHOOL ATMOSPHERE 


1. Social Organization: Practising self-direction and leadership 
in small groups; learning knowledge of men and the simple skills 
of organization. 


2. Social Ideals: Expecting each one to do his own job assigned 
to him by the group to satisfy the demands of the group and 
his own standard of proficiency; practising strict rules of give- 
and-take in living together; training in self-dependence by doing 
without servants for definite periods of time; cultivating a con- 
sciousness of responsibility toward the fellow-beings living in 
the community and the surrounding country; learning by living 
the significance of ancient precepts in cultivating one’s own vir- 
tue and in appreciating the humanistic traditions of the race. 


The Staging of Part I. For experimentation the first group of 
boys going through the experience should perhaps be not more 
than forty or fifty in number. The number of teachers may be 
few or many, for the activities will call for expert knowledge that 
cannot be supplied by only two or three men. Besides the two or 
three who should give their whole time to the experiment, there 
should be ready at the disposal of the students men who have the 
knowledge to supply the needed information and methods. 

The physical equipment of the school need not be elaborate. 
We are taking for granted that all or most of the students live 


76 Education for Modernization in China 


in some dormitory of the school. Aside from the rooms where 
conferences can be held for the discussion of ways and means 
of doing things—these need not be the formal classrooms with 
the standard blackboards, desks, and chairs—there should be a 
spacious room where the books of references are kept. There 
should be ready in this room the sources of information made 
easily accessible at the command of the students. 


Part II]. New ComMuNITY BUILDING 
A. THE PROJECTS 


1. To carry on actual administrative duties for a small sec- 
tion of the community, distributing the duties among the stu- 
dents according to their qualifications; to take charge of new 
functions of a community in the process of building up such as 
street-planning and -cleaning, the laying of a sewage system, 
distribution of marketing and arrangements and shopping facili- 
ties, policing, etc.; to learn to administer the communicative 
agencies such as telephone, telegraph, post office, street car, licensing 
of vehicles and the like; to know how to run the machinery involved. 

2. To investigate phases of community life, to study govern- 
ments of the community, of the province, and of the nation; to 
visit the administrative departments of the local government, 
and of the provincial and national governments. 

3. To discharge the duties of the community toward the less 
fortunate members. 


B. THE FORMULATED STUDIES 
1. The Languages. 


Chinese: Training in oral and written composition of things inves- 
tigated, of plans made, and of results of action; reading documents in 
connection with the administration of local, provincial, and national 
governments, and learning to write the same; practising making 
public speeches to inform the public of the important current 
issues and to advocate for definite action; writing articles in 
community newspapers and learning to edit the same; learning 
necessary rules of grammar and rhetoric in order that the com- 
position may be correct and forceful in style. 


Leadership Education as a Basis for Experimentation AL 


English: Reading phases of life in modern cities, reading accounts 
of travels through the large cities of the world; writing accounts 
of community reforms for English reading. public; writing 
letters to boys in foreign countries with the idea of securing in- 
formation concerning problems and solutions in local self-govern- 
ment; practising necessary rules of grammar and rhetoric to 
make writings clear and presentable. 


2. Mathematics: Learning mathematical symbols and functions 
in connection with planning and construction of city streets, 
city sewage, city lighting, city telephoning, and the like; prac- 
tising keeping account of the community including budget- 
making, book-keeping, and auditing; using graphs and charts in 
propaganda material and reports. 


3. Natural Sciences: Learning uses of sciences in different phases 
of community life, elements of biology in connection with public 
hygiene, elements of physics and chemistry in connection with 
construction plans; gradual beginning in laboratory work and in 
the study of sciences as logical wholes. 


4. Social Sciences: Learning the functions of the various factors 
involved in local, provincial, and national governments; studying 
the history of political institutions that have bearings especially 
on the community government; practising the division of labor 
in the administration of political institutions, such as executive 
dispatch, legislative deliberation, and popular financial control ; 
practising parliamentary procedure and the democratic method 
of arousing public interest in carrying out needed reforms; 
learning economic facts and laws in connection with the pro- 
ductive industries of the community; knowing the history of the 
political and economic institutions, tracing their development 
in China as well as in Western modern countries. 


5. Vocational Skills: Planning and executing some necessary 
piece of work which better satisfies needs of life in the community, 
such as city sewage, street cleaning, city park, tree planting, 
public markets, and the like; learning to use necessary machines 
for the doing of work that cannot be done by hand labor. 

6. Games and Recreation: Continuing with games and sports for 
the development of strong bodies and cooperative spirit; learning 
to provide games and forms of recreation for the people in the 


78 Education for Modernization in China 


community ; supervising play of children in certain localities of 
the community; organizing festival activities for the social group. 


C. THE SCHOOL ATMOSPHERE 


1. Social Organization: Learning to bear responsibility in the 
service of people outside of the school group; practising the 
proper division of labor and function according to special talents; 
learning how to select public men and where to lead and where 
to follow. 

2. Social Ideals: Practising public responsibility and ideals in- 
volved; learning to respect rights and opinion of a large group 
of people and learning to cooperate for community welfare with 
all the people in the community; studying ideals and habits in 
traditional social institutions, distinguishing the elements that 
will adapt themselves to modern situations and those which will 
not. 

The Staging of Part II, The general conditions for staging Part II 
will be about the same as for Part I, only wider fields of informa- 
tion and skills should be placed at the disposal of the students, 
and from this stage on individual differentiation will be more 
and more marked. 

The section of community where the students will have their 
practice and responsibility may be chosen within the city or 
in some village close by. In either case proper arrangements 
must be made beforehand with the local authorities. Duties 
assigned to the students must be definite and specific, and must 
not be beyond their powers. 


Part III. ScrENTIFIC PRODUCING AND ORGANIZING 


A. THE PROJECTS 


1. To survey and analyze the productive vocations of the commu- 
nity or of some city near by. 

2. To do actual work in two or three of the organizations which 
may be industries, schools, commercial offices, farms, and the like. 


B. THE FORMULATED STUDIES 


1. The Languages. 
Chinese: Learning necessary forms needed in the different voca- 


Leadership Education as a Basis for Experimentation 79 


tions, including occupations such as writing, journalism, political 
administration, etc.; reading literature that deals with problems 
and conditions in industrial and social relations; using oral and 
written forms of expression in connection with public issues. 


English: Reading wonders of modern science and organization in 
foreign countries; writing English for trade purposes for those 
who are thinking of engaging in any industry; writing for the 
expression of opinion for those who are interested in social organ- 
ization ; writing for the stating of facts and results of experiments 
for those who are interested in science ; writing for aesthetic apprecia- 
tion for those who are interested in language and literature as such. 


2. Mathematics: Learning mathematical tools in connection with 
the needs of the different kinds of practical work in the produc- 
tive vocations according to individual interests and aptitudes. 


3. Natural Sciences: Learning the application of sciences to 
practical needs, paying more attention to the laboratory work in con- 
nection with scientific research. 

4. Social Sciences: Studying social and industrial conditions, his- 
tory of development. of various modern vocations; tracing the 
history of vocational practices in China; studying relations of 
vocations to changes in political practice and social ideals. 

5. Vocational Skills: Gaining real experience in two or more 
fields of actual work in the various lines of endeavor where leader- 
ship is needed. The theory behind this practice is that only by actual 
participation can the youths find out what line of vocation they will 
spend their lives in. 

6. Games and Recreation: Realizing more and more the impor- 
tance of physical vitality as they taste the strenuous life of real 
productive work; learning to extend games and forms of recrea- 
tion to the workers in the schools, factories, offices, or farms with 
whom they may come into contact in their periods of practice. 


Cc. THE SCHOOL ATMOSPHERE 


The same social organization and ideals as gradually built up 
in the first two years will now find a wider sphere and opportu- 
nity for actual practice. There is still the close unity of spirit 
of the school group, although they are more and more divided 
in their interests and fields of experience. Definite activities 


¢ 


80 Education for Modernization in China 


should be carried on within the school for the exchange of 
experiences and for the expansion of mental horizon through 
vicarious experiencing. 


The Staging of Part III, The practice in the various offices and 
shops naturally requires previous arrangement with the people 
in charge. The students sent over would want to feel the same 
kind of responsibility as workers of the same standing. The 
periods of practice may be short or long according to individual 
cases, but certain teachers should take it as their special respon- 
sibility to visit the students at work at least once every day, and 
see how the work is progressing and how much worthwhile and 
significant experience the student is actually gaining. Careful 
records should, of course, be kept of the individual cases. 


EPILOGUE 


The kind of supervised half-practice and half-study may last 
for one, two, or more years. The school should be responsible 
to determine in regard to each individual pupil as to the best 
kind of preparation he should have—or to stop further schooling 
—and what kind of higher training institution he should be 
advised to go to. This training in the early stages in leadership 
education is the most vital one and hence deserves immediate 
attention and effort in experimentation. As to how further 
training should be carried on, we shall leave that to the higher 
institutions whose task it should be, to survey the needs of 
leadership in the various fields and to determine the most eff- 
cient method of training in each. It is hoped that the prelimi- 
nary suggestions made in connection with this inquiry may 
introduce a glimmer of some future day when, instead of going 
ahead by blind copying or vague guessing, we may proceed by 
the analysis of concrete needs and by the determination of the 
peculiar aim and methods that the social situation calls for. 


APPENDIX I 


CERTAIN ATTEMPTS THAT ILLUSTRATE IN A 
MEASURE SOME ASPECTS OF THE PLAN 
HEREIN DISCUSSED 


1. The Interlaken School, Indiana 


The motto of the boys’ school at Interlaken, Ind., is “To teach 
boys to live.” 

The chief idea of this experiment is the abolition of textbooks 
with the old-fashioned reservoir and pump relation of pupil and 
teacher and the provision of an environment which is full of interest- 
ing things that need to be done. Here the school buildings have been 
built by the boys, the plans being drawn, the foundations dug and 
laid, and the carpentry and the painting of the building done by pupil 
labor. The boys also run the electric light and heating plant, and a 
six hundred acre farm with a dairy, a piggery, a hennery, and crops 
to be sold and gathered. Each boy looks after his own room, and 
work in corridor and school-rooms is attended to by changing shifts. 

The boys at the school also publish a weekly paper for the neigh- 
boring village. All the boys participate in this enterprise according 
to their various capacities. 

They do all these things, not because of the direct vocational 
values, but because to use tools, to meet different kinds of problems, 
to work and exercise outdoors, and to learn to supply one’s daily 
needs, are educating influences which develop skill, initiative, inde- 
pendence, and bodily strength. Most of the boys are preparing for 
college, but this outdoor and manual work does not mean that they 
have to take any longer time for their preparation than the boys in 
the city high school. 


From Dewey, School of Tomorrow, pp. 87-89. 


2. Dalton Plan 

The plan preserves grouping by grades but pupils work at their 
own rate of speed, fast in some subjects and more slowly in others 
but still remaining with their group. Beginning with the fourth 


82 Education for Modermzation in China 


grade the child is assigned for each subject to a “subject laboratory” 
having special equipment and reference material and having a special- 
ist in charge. His work in each subject for the month is assigned 
at the beginning of the month and he may plan his time as he thinks 
best to accomplish it. The instruction is mainly individual but work 
with the group is also included. 


Adapted from Dewey, The Dalton Laboratory Plan 
(Dutton, New York 1921). 


3. Winnetka 


Promotion of each pupil in each subject whenever he completes 
the work of his grade in that subject. To this end the specific goals 
of each grade are determined and set forth so that the child may 
himself judge his progress in terms of concrete facts to be known, 
habits to be acquired, or skills to be developed. 

Complete diagnostic tests are used to show progress, for under 
an individual system each pupil must achieve 100 per cent efficiency 
and tests show exactly what he has yet to accomplish. 

Practice material is afforded for the pupil’s own use, the material 
to correspond with weakness shown in tests, so that each pupil may 
correct his own daily work. 

Sufficient social work is said to be provided to counteract the indi- 

vidual work. 


Adapted from C. W. Washburne, Elementary School 
Journal, 21 :52-68. 


4. San Francisco 

This system depends entirely on individual instruction. The les- 
sons to teach new principles or processes are constructed upon an 
elastic plan. There are duplicate exercises and each pupil works as 
many or as few as he needs to master the principles. Promotion is 
by subjects, not grades, and a pupil may be advanced at any time 
when he is fitted to do so. If his progress in some one subject is so 
far behind the rest, as to make it advisable, he may take from the 
‘other subjects the time he needs to make up this one in which he is 
deficient. 

Self-instruction bulletins are used by the children in connection 


Appendix 83 


with their texts. They are written directly to the children and are 
easy to follow. 

To offset the possible danger from much individual work, group 
periods daily are devoted to “oral expression’”—exposition, discus- 
sion and dramatics. 


Adapted from Frederic Burk, Monograph C, San 
Francisco State Normal School, 1915. 


5. Fitchburg Plan of Codperative Industrial Education 

“The industrial course is of four years’ duration, the same as the 
regular high-school course. The first year is spent wholly in school; 
in the next three years the boys alternate weekly between shop and 
school. . . . The pupils are paired, and during the first week 
half of them remain at work while the rest attend school. Those 
who attend school the first week spend the second week in the shops, 
and those who remain in the shop the first week attend school the 
second week. This alternation continues throughout the year. 
Three summers are spent in the shops, beginning with the close of 
the first year in June. The first summer is a trial period of two 
months and is given to each candidate to determine if he is adapted 
to the particular trade he elects.” The boys receive pay for their 
actual work, and continuous work during the vacation period is pro- 
vided for every boy who cares to work. 


U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1913, No. 50. 


6. Beverly Industrial School Plan : 

This plan follows rather closely the Fitchburg plan of alternate 
school and shop work, with the difference that the school retains full 
control of the pupils while they are in the factory. The pupils while 
in the shop are in a separate department and the same person in- 
structs each particular division both in shop and in school. 


Adapted from Leavitt, Examples of Industrial Edu- 
cation (New York 1912) pp. 209ff. 


7. Gary, Indiana 
“The school program is so arranged that during each morning and 
each afternoon session of the school one half the pupils have ninety 


84 Education for Modernization in China 


minutes of work in the regular subjects;—English, history and 
mathematics,—followed by ninety minutes of work in the special 
subjects,—manual training, science, drawing, music, play, and physi- 
cal culture. The remaining pupils have the same program, but in 
the reverse order, the regular work following the ninety minutes of 
special work. Thus work in both regular and special subjects is 
being carried on continuously during the day, by special teachers 
and on the departmental plan, as far as desired, in either group. 

“A child, if it is for his best interest to do so, may take an extra 
amount of regular work in place of a portion of the special work, 
or vice versa. Thus a boy who has failed in English can make up 
his deficiency by going into another regular English class during his 
special-work period. A boy whose interests demand that he be given 
more time in manual training can have a maximum of three hours 
a day in that subject, if desirable, during the regular school hours.” 


W. A. Wirt, Quoted in Leavitt, Examples of Indus- 
trial Education p. 92. 


8. New York “Group System” or “Large School Plan” 


“Because of the large number of pupils in city schools, it is pos- 
sible to have in each grade three or more classes and to group the 
pupils according to ability, with the bright students in one class, the 
slow in another, and the medium in still others. The group system 
has been worked out in two ways, which are designated as (1) the 
“Constant-Group System,” and (2) the “Shifting-Group System.” 
In the operation of the constant-group method, the membership of 
the class remains the same for a definite period, and promotions are 
made only at regular and stated intervals. Divisions must be pro- 
vided in nearly all subjects of the course, and students in the most 
advanced sections may pass to a higher grade in those subjects in 
which they are prepared to do the advanced work, without having to 
be equally well prepared in the other subjects. In the shifting-group 
method, there may be as many groups in as many subjects as the 
teacher thinks best, and promotions may take place at any time. The 
aim in the shifting group is to encourage the bright pupils to do 
thorough and careful work while the slow pupils are being brought 
up to the grade standard. The primary aim of the constant-group 


Appendix 85 


method, on the other hand, is to give the bright pupil opportunity 
to advance as rapidly as possible.” 


National Society for the Study of Education, Nine- 
teenth Yearbook, Part II, pp. 16f., 1920. 


9. Batavia System 


Under the Batavia System one half of the time is given to regu- 
lar recitation and the other half to individual recitation. 

In the grades, each room has two grades and two teachers, one 
doing class work exclusively and the other individual work. “The 
class teacher takes one grade for class work while the other grades 
are at study; the individual teacher is always to be found at her table 
with one pupil. . . . The special work of the individual teacher 
is to find the weak spots.” 

In the high school the same principle is used. The teacher meets 

her class at the regular times, having on alternate days recitation and 
individual work. During the regular recitation period she notes the 
pupils “who do not appear fully to grasp the subject under treat- 
ment.” . . . When the class assembles on the following day 
advanced work is assigned and “the pupils at once take up the new 
task, each for himself. The teacher seats herself at her desk. She 
calls to her side the boy or girl whom the discussion of the preceding 
day’s lesson has shown to be in doubt or distress in regard to any 
part of the work.” Whatever time is necessary to clear up this diffi- 
culty is given to this pupil. Another then takes his place. 
“At the next recitation of the same class the regular work is taken 
up. Both lessons, the one assigned at the close of the regular recita- 
tion and the one given out at the beginning of the individual period, 
are recited.”’ A special individual instructor, in the main study hall, 
works along similar lines with pupils who by reason of protracted 
illness or other peculiar difficulties need more time than the class- 
room teacher can give. 


Educational Work, 1:6-11 (1906). 


10. Recommendations Concerning the Education of Gifted Children. 
1. Health should be an important factor in the selection of the 
pupils. 


86 Education for Modernization in China 


2. The teacher of gifted children must possess a large fund of 
general information. 

3. The teacher must be characterized by energy, enthusiasm, and 
an inspiring personality. 

4. The teacher should not give redundant explanations and mean- 
ingless drill; emphasis should be placed on the development of the 
pupil’s initiative. Attention should be given to a proper perspective 
of the material of instruction. 

5. The teacher need but pay little attention to discipline so long 
as the pupils are supplied with enough active work to keep them 
busy. 

6. If any of the pupils seem to be developing egoistic tendencies, 
the teacher should apply the social check. 

7. The course of study should be allowed wide latitude in modi- 
fication in order to fit the purposes of the pupils. 

The above points are taken from the General Summary in the 
19th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education 
on Classroom Problems in the Education of Gifted Children. They 
are readily applicable in the education for leadership in China. 


From the Nineteenth Yearbook, Part II, pp. 112-119. 


APPENDIX II 


A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE CHIEF CONDI- 
TIONING CIRCUMSTANCE OF MODERN PROGRESS 


Note: The two or three books marked (*) at the head of each group have been found to 
be of especial value in the study of the dynamic conditioning circumstance of 
modern progress. 


I. EXPANSION AND ProcrEss 
A. GENERAL FACTS 


* SHEPHERD, W.R. “The Expansion of Europe.” Political Science 
Quarterly, 1919. 
I, Introduction and the Transit of European Ideas and Institutions 
to non-European Lands. pp. 43-60. 
II. The Reaction on European Life and Thought. pp. 210-225. 
III. The Reaction on European Life and Thought. pp. 392-412. 
* ApBoTT, W.C. The Expansion of Europe. 2 vol. Holt, 1918. 
A comprehensive treatise of European history from the Renaissance to 
the French Revolution from the standpoint of the expansion. 
* KouL, J.G. A Popular History of the Discovery of America. 2 vol. 
Chapman and Hall, London, 1862. 
In Vol. 11, Chap. vi, a very suggestive account of the results of the dis- 
covery of America to commerce, navigation, science, religion and politics. 
Cambridge Modern History. Vol. land Ill. Macmillan, 1902-12. 
GILLESPIE, J. E. Influence of Oversea Expansion on England to 
1700. Columbia University, 1920. 
Happon, A. C. The Wanderings of Peoples. Cambridge University 
Press, 1912. 
A brief statement of the general movement of peoples in all continents. 
Haves, C. J. H. A Political and Social History of Modern Europe. 
2 vol. Macmillan, 1916. 
Jayne, K. G. Vasco Da Gama and His Successors. Methuen, Lon- 
don, 1910. 
Chapters I-1v treat the beginnings of modern expansion from Prince 
Henry the Navigator to Columbus. 
Mauan, A. T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660- 
1783. Little, Brown, 1890. 
pp. 28-58, a discussion on general conditions affecting sea power; and 
pp. 82-83, on the influence of colonies on sea power. 


88 Education for Modernization in China 


Muir, R. The Expansion of Europe. Houghton Mifflin, 1917. 
Chap. I. Meaning and Motive of Imperialism. 
Chap. IV. The Era of Revolution, 1763-1825. 
Chap. V. Europe and the Non-European World, 1815-1878. 

POLLARD, A. F. Factors in Modern History. Putnam, 1907. 
The object of the author is “to stimulate imagination” in the study of 
history. Good analysis of Colonial Expansion, pp. 236-262. 

STODDARD, L. The Rising Tide of Color. Scribner, 1920. 
It marks the beginning of the end of modern European expansion. The 
author is journalistic and very race-conscious. 

Taytor, H. O. Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century. 

Macmillan, 1920. 

A comprehensive survey taking in many complex factors of the complex 
century. 


B. THEORIES 


* SUMNER, W.G. Earth Hunger and Other Essays. Yale University 
Press, 1913. 
The title essay, Earth Hunger or the Philosophy of Land Grabbing, was 
written in 1896. The hypothesis of the ratio of population to land is 
used to interpret historical movements. Especially penetrating passage 
on modern colonization, pp. 41-45. 
*Topp, A. J. Theories of Social Progress. Macmillan, 1918. 
A careful and exhaustive presentation of the Prophets of Progress. 
ApvaAms, Brooxs. The Law of Civilization and Decay. Macmillan, 
1896. 
Chaps. x-x1I, on the modern period. 
ApaMs, H. The Rule of Phase Applied to History, in The Degrada- 
tion of the Democratic Dogma. Macmillan, 1919. 
Inference drawn from mathematical physics. 
Bury, J. H. The Idea of Progress. Macmillan, 1920. 
ConKLIN, E.G. The Direction of Human Evolution. Scribner, 1921. 
Part II, Chap. I]. Progress in Human History. Chap. III. Biological 
Basis of Democracy. It presents the biological interpretation. 
GumpLowicz, L. The Outlines of Sociology. Trans. by F. W. 
Moore. American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1899. 
Theory on the Cycle of Development, and on Progress and Innovation, 
pp. 205-210. 
Hosuouse, L. T. Social Evolution and Political Theory. Columbia 
University Press, 1911. 


Fine distinction of Evolution and Progress in Chaps. I, 1, VII. 


Appendix 89 


HUNTINGTON, E. Civilization and Climate. Yale University Press, 
1915. 


The basis used for ranking civilization needs revision. But the author 
realizes the relative importance of one factor in the environment, climate. 


Lowrie, R. H. Culture and Ethnology. McMuttrie, 1917. 

A brief popular account. Chap. Iv treats the Determinants of Culture 
from the point of view of an anthropologist. 

Mactuus, T. R. Essay on Population. 

Chap 1: The classical beginning of the struggle for existence theory. 

Mutver-Lyer, F. The History of Social Development. Trans. by 

Lake. Allen and Unwin, London, 1921. 
In Book Iv are summarized the Causes of Progress. 

SEMPLE, E. C. Influences of Geographical Environment. Holt, 1911. 
Chap. 111: “Society and State in Relation to the Land,’ and Chap. tv: 
“Movement of Peoples in their Geographical Significance” are especially 
applicable for the theory of expansion. 

Vico, G. B. Article on, in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition. 
An account of his Law of Cycle. 

Warp, L .F. Dynamic Sociology. 2 vol. Appleton, 1883. 


Vol. 1, Chap. x and x1, on Progress and Action. 


II. ScrENCE AND INDUSTRIES 
A. ) SCIENCE 


* Rospinson, J. H. The Mind in the Making. Harper, 1921. 
An illuminating study. Chap. vi on The Scientific Revolution and How 
Scientific Knowledge has Revolutionized the Conditions of Life. 
* VEBLEN, T. The Place of Science in Modern Civilization. Huebsch, 
1919. 
Chap. 1 and 1, an insight into the visionary character of modern science. 
Bury, J. H. History of the Freedom of Thought. Holt, 1913. 
A clear, popular account. : 
Dewey, J. How We Think. Heath, 1910. 
Creative Intelligence. Holt, 1917. 
Influence of Darwin on Philosophy. Holt, 1910. 
LIPPMANN, W. Drift and Mastery. Mitchell Kennerley, 1914. 
pp. 269-329 on the need of scientific attitude in modern social organ- 
ization. 
Pearson, K. Grammar of Science. 3rd Ed. A. and C. Black, London. 
PoincarRE, H. Foundations of Science; Science and Hypothesis. 
Trans. by G. B. Halsted. Science Press, New York, 1913. 


90 Education for Modernization in China 


B. INDUSTRIES 


*VEBLEN, T. Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution. Mac- 
millan, 1915. 
Chap. 1v. The Case of England. 
Chap. vi. The Industrial Revolution in Germany. 

*SHEPHERD, W.R. The Expansion of Europe. Vol. I, pp. 210-225. 
On how the expansion influenced and made possible the industrial and 
financial revolutions in Europe. 

Day, C. A History of Commerce. Longmans, Green, 1907. 

The effect on commerce, manufactures and means of communication, of 
modern expansion. Chap. xv and XXVIII-XXXI. 

Det Mar, A. Money and Civilization. George Bell, London, 1886. 
“Tremendous stimulus afforded by the plunder of America” saved Europe 
from the stationary condition of the Dark Ages, and the temporary ben- 
efits of the Renaissance. Chap. 1x, x, XI, and XIII. 

MeERIVALE, H. Lectures on Colomzation and Colonies. Longmans, 

Green, 1861. 
Part 11, Economic effects of colonization on the parent state; effect of 
emigration on the progress of the population and wealth; effects of the 
exportation of capital; effects of colonial trade. 

NicHotson, J. S. A Project of Empire. Macmillan, 1909. 

A critical study of the economics of Imperialism, with special reference 
to the ideas of Adam Smith. 

SEELEY, J. R. The Expansion of England. Little, Brown, 1920. 
Lecture V. Effects of the New World on the Old. 

Lecture VII. Phases of Expansion. 
STRONG, J. Expansion, Under New World Conditions. Baker & Tay- 
lor, 1900. 
The analysis of the need of the United States for foreign markets after 
the exhaustion of the arable public lands. 


III. INDIVIDUALITY AND DEMOCRACY 
A. INDIVIDUALITY 


*Hockinc, W. E. Human Nature and Its Re-Making. Yale Uni- 
versity Press, 1918. 

Chap. 1v and v: A Critical Account of Modern Liberators, Rousseau, 
Nietzsche, to Freud. Also Chap. x1: A Discussion of The Will in Its 
Modern Aspects. 

*Dewey, J. AND Turts, J. H. Ethics. Holt, 1908. 
Part 1, Chap. vu, The Beginnings of the Development of Modern 
Individualism. 


Appendix al 


Fite, W. Individualism. Longmans, Green, 1911. 
The evolution of the individual, pp. 135-169. 
The formal principles of Individualism, pp. 170-182. 
The theory of natural rights, pp. 231-259, 
Individualism and socialism, pp. 274-291. 
Hosnovuse, L. T. Morals in Evolution. Holt, 1906. 
Part 11, Chap. vit, on the antithesis of duty and interest in modern ethics. 
LaskI, H. J. Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham. 
Holt, 1920. 
On Adam Smith and individualism, pp. 308-312. 
Le Bon, G. The Psychology of Revolution. Trans. by B. Miall. Put- 
nam, 1913. 
Part 1, Bk. 11, Chap. 1: Individual variations in time of revolution. 


Mitt, J. S. Liberty. Longmans, 1913. 
The classical mid-nineteenth century exposition. 
NIETZSCHE, F. Beyond Good and Evil. 
The Will to Power. 
WaLtLas, G. Our Social Heritage. Yale University Press, 1921. 
In Chap. vu, on Liberty, he criticizes the conception of Mill, and advo- 
cates the many-sided and positive conception of Pericles! 


B,. DEMOCRACY 


*BECKER, C. The United States an Experiment in Democracy. Mac- 
millan, 1920. 

Recurring illustrations throughout the book of the relationship between 
frontier and democracy. 

*Dewey, J. Democracy and Education. Macmillan, 1916. 
The interpretation of democracy as “primarily a mode of associated 
living, of conjoint communicated experience,’ whose worth is to be 
measured by “the extent in which the interests are shared by all its 
members, and the fullness and freedom with which it interacts with 
other groups.” Chap. vit. 

BaGEHOT, W. Physics and Politics. Appleton, 1887. 
In Chap. 11 and m1, on the Use of Conflict and Nation-Making, he illus- 
trates the need of inner coherence of the group before and during periods 
of expansion. 

Bryce, J. Modern Democracies. 2 vol. Macmillan, 1920. 
A standard compendium. Part 1, Chap. Iv and v treat the historical evolu- 
tion and theoretical foundations of democracy. 

FisHer, H. A. L. The Republican Tradition in Europe. Putnam, 

1911. 

The rise of the protestant spirit and of the French Republic, in Chap, 
III and Iv. 


92 Education for Modernization in China 


Grippincs, F. H. Democracy and Empire. Macmillan, 1900. 

It sets up a puzzle, and tries to solve it by imagining back to primitive 
conditions and a shadowy “ethical like-mindedness.” It neglects environ- 
ment and the significance of expansion. 

KROPOTKIN, P. Mutual Aid. 

LippMANN, W. Public Opinion. Harcourt, Brace, 1922. 

Part 1v: The Image of Democracy. A discerning analysis. 

Martin, E. D. The Behavior of Crowds. Harper, 1920. 

A popular application of the newer psychology to the observation of 
the behavior of crowds. 

RusseELu, B. Why Men Fight. Century, 1917. 

Proposed Roads to Freedom. Holt, 1919. 

Wattas, G. Our Social Heritage. Yale University Press, 1921. 
Chap. 1x: World cooperation, is deemed necessary for survival, but it 
can only be built up by efforts of rational calculation and rationalized 
conduct. 


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